Hopscotch
by swan-scones
Summary: "We are all primary numbers divisible only by ourselves." A Murdoc Niccals story. Hannibal Niccals, Teenage!Murdoc, OC, love-triangle.
1. Prologue

_29__th__ June 1981_

"You're fifteen-years-old," Pris said.

He could smell her now, this close: clean _Daz_ washing powder on her clothes, Turkish cigarettes and cheap strawberry bubblegum on her breath. She was wearing perfume too, acidic and floral – but it had grown old and sweaty now, made her smell a lot like a prostitute.

They were inches from touching; feet, hands, noses, both lying side by side and turned to each other on top of her creased green duvet, bed sunken with their weight. She lay there and watched him slowly, fluttery-eyed, completely still. He was growing bored with this patience. He leaned his face closer and grinned, "Oh, I _see_. We're entering a PG situation now, are we?"

Pris smiled stupidly. She didn't move closer, but her big round eyes flickered down to his mouth – once, twice – and that was enough to keep him still for a while. Her smile began to slither away and then saw her swallow, throat muscles constricting with it. He craned his neck closer.

"No, listen," she said quietly, voice gritty.

He didn't want to listen to her anymore. He shook his head, exhaling loudly, and then he demanded irritably, "What?"

One of her hands, corded with masculine muscle, moved to brush against his. She ran her thumb over his knuckles in a single, steady motion.

Her touch was medicinal, like cool water over a burn.

"You're fifteen-years-old," she repeated, and this time she didn't smile all close-mouthed and secret: instead, she looked at the wall opposite, at its yellow wallpaper with the smiling teddy bears with blue bows between their ears dotted across it.

He chuckled, shuffling closer a little more, "I won't press charges, if that's what you're worried about."

Pris smiled once again, this time wider, revealing her blunt greyish teeth beneath a stretch of deep pink. She shook her head, and he took this opportunity to once again get closer to her, the smoky mouth and cloudy eyes.

"Wait, Murdoc," she insisted, and then her soothing touch became the dig of four wide, flat knuckles into his shoulder. She was pushing him back, pushing her knuckles into his shoulder, blinking furiously. "You're fifteen."

She was pale, despite the heat, and breathing heavily through her nose. He glanced at her, lips thick and dry like her hands, and then closed his eyes. He didn't need to see her to know she wouldn't, couldn't, look. He felt her hands leave him, the palms had been chalky and warm; they left cool trails in their wake. He forced his eyes back open, and then said through clenched teeth, "I _know_."

Still she couldn't look, and it pissed him off. Her eyes were on the wall again, fluttery, blue.

"_What's_ the problem?" He asked suddenly, glaring at her face. Her eyes were foggy.

She answered, "You."

"Me?" he hissed. "_Now_ what have I fucking done?"

There was a pause, where he poked his tongue reflexively around his bloated lower lip. It would hurt to kiss her with that, he knew, but he didn't mind – didn't _care_. She'd taste of his brother's expensive cigarettes and girl and bubblegum pulp, her tongue would probably be all grainy like a cat's because it was dehydrated. He _wanted_.

"_You_," she said, "are my boyfriend's little brother."

She looked at his face finally, her mouth scrunching. She could smell that familiar warm scent, the smell of his _brother_, on him; shaving cream and nicotine and sweaty cotton t-shirts. His mouth was just the same as his, shaped the same, coloured the same, probably felt the same too.

"You're – you're my boyfriend's little brother," she said, quieter this time.

Saying it felt strange. It was sort of like having a tooth pulled and spitting out blood into a white enamel sink: the elation and revulsion of having living part of her cut out, to bleed and not feel a thing, to stick her tongue into a physical dead cavity of herself.

It escaped her, now, the reason that all of this came to be. All she knew now was that her mouth tasted of dental floss, dental mouth-rinse, bitter rubber dentist gloves. It didn't taste good.

"You're my boyfriend's little brother."

She had to think –


	2. Chapter One

_back – _

* * *

_29__th__ May 1981_

Pris was watching the particles of dust dancing in a single shaft of bright lamplight. They fluttered and swam, the lights embrace held them safe; but when they moved to darkness they soon became misplaced. They turned to cool air with no hope for reformation.

She blinked.

A mug of milky tea was in her hand, warm yellow ceramic, and she drank from it deeply as she looked out at the garden. She was leaning against the kitchen sink, one hand gripping the mug, the other resting flat and clammy on the plastic. Their kitchen had a tiny window opposite the sink, just above the oven, which over-looked the square rabbit-run of a garden. Her Mum was very good at killing things, romances, for instance; but especially grass and flowers. Overhead the mud and the shrivelled shells was the sky, and that was darkened with summer-rain.

Just behind her Ultravox were belting out All Stood Still on _Top of the Pops_, the clock read 9:45, her brother was picking the dead flesh from the underside of his feet, and a man was sitting in his slippers with tea in their best white bone-China. They had given Dave, a beer-gutted Management Executive, who had turned up at their house in what was clearly a suit brought from a Charity shop, tea in their best china.

He'd be gone soon enough, and she knew this, but he looked far too comfortable for her liking; sat in a shirt on their red settee with his cup of tea and in his slippers.

"Christ," he said loudly, licking his tongue around his mouth, screwing it up. "How much _bloody_ milk did you want ta put in this, darlin'?"

She glowered at him, smacking her mug down onto the table angrily, pale tea sloshing out and forming another ring on the wood.

"What you on about?" She demanded.

"There's about ten pissin' gallons of milk in this!"

Pris walked over to him, feeling her mouth jittering angrily and making no effort to stop it. Her brother, noticing this, rolled up the volume of Ultravox and looked down at the old carpet nervously. She snapped, "Listen here, _you_ –"

"All I'm sayin' is, babe, you can't taste any bloody tea in it. That's all I'm saying. O.K.?"

"I'll be honest with you, _babe_," Pris snarled back at him, "I'm not really interest in anything you've got to fuckin' say."

Mum was in the shower at the moment, which she regretted. It'd do her some good to see how ungrateful a Management Executive he really was.

Dave calmly placed his cup on the floor and looked at her with those light eyes, shrunken into his big thick fat face. Her Father had been no Simon Le Bon, she'd be the first to admit it – but her Mum _could_ do better than this bloke. "Look -"

"Make your own tea in the future," she bit at him, and then she snatched up her work fleece from over the arm of the sofa and pushed herself into it. Dave muttered something, shaking his head. "I been good enough to make it in the first place. And I'm disinfecting that cup when you're done with it."

Her little brother, William, glanced up at her worriedly.

"Pris?" He asked.

"What?"

He frowned at her and pushed his straggly brown hair from his face, feet curling on the carpet, dead skin under his nails. "Where – where you goin'?"

She pulled out her packet of Camel Filters hurriedly and threw one in his direction. It fell just in front of the TV. He crawled to retrieve it, eyes widening, and then shoved it into his mouth with a vulture-like _cluck _from the back of his throat.

"Goin' out, Billy," she answered, and swung out for the door handle. Dave turned around, cup of sickly milky tea in hand again, and sighed.

"Priscilla, look –"

"Pris, where –"

"–I just like tea that tastes like tea–"

"–Mum'll go spare if she knows you've been running off again–"

"–Didn't mean to offend you, sweetie–"

"–if you're goin' to the dog fights–"

She slammed the door on their voices and stood for a moment, in the rain, her mouth tasting of sugar and milk. She could make out Billy's face pressed against the window just beside her, shouting at her and knocking the glass with his fist. She could not hear him and didn't want to, so she set off. She had been home from work all of fifteen minutes, and already she was back out in the rain...

Dave's fault. Of course it was.

Pris knew where she would go, and began walking hastily, through the drains clogged with dead leaves and rain, through muddy basins of water. He, her destination, lived a few streets down, on the same council estate as her; she liked that he was never far away.

She slid her last cigarette between her teeth and then flicked the lighter, curling thin fingers; yellow flame glittered through the rain. Cold and pissed off, she was all the more desperate to hawk out every last slug of tobacco, and so sucked heavily as she walked. Her socks began to squelch within her loafers, slapped against the gleaming black tarmac pavement, split puddles. It was raining hard and the sky was purple over her head, it was bruised.

He wasn't far now, the turn onto Amos Lane was visible through the black water. She turned into it and ran her hand under her nose, feeling the slick mucus and rain there before scrubbing the hand on her thigh carelessly.

Squashed-up red-brick terraces lined this street, each one with a yellowed lawn and a gate with a small, eaten-away garden wall. His house wasn't far away now, only distinguishable by the sun-dyed white net curtains in the little lattice windows, and the apricot tea-rose bush beside the door, rotting darkly.

She kicked open the little gate when outside of his house, walked hurriedly up the stone path, and then the two steps to the door.

The door had a knocker, of course, a small gold one, but she didn't want to use it and frankly didn't care, thrilled at the opportunity to punch something in. She beat her fist as hard as possible against the, the stained glass window inside of it with the picture of a sailboat visibly rattling.

No answer came.

"Oi!"

Her voice was scratchy and strained and she pressed her eyes shut, _hating_ it, the sound of near-crying, and so swallowed thickly to relieve it. Still, nobody came, and so she shouted, slamming her hand on the wood, "I'm freezing my tits off 'ere!"

She then took another drag on the cigarette, folding her arms beneath her breasts and waiting. Noise finally came from inside, a light turned on and burned in her face through the glass.

"Pris?"

Hannibal too was bruised, she found, when he answered the door. His left eye was blotted black, swollen and red-rimmed and trickling salt. He had a little nick on his lower lip too; apparently it had been torn, raw, healing with a rough scab. The injuries were all new, but she saw no point in asking about them: he had been out last night with the boys, if he hadn't returned with a wound she would have been slightly concerned.

The grain of his dark hair was showing on his shaved head, blue veins spiralling across it, bleached pale in the strange rain-light. He frowned at her, nudging the door open with one pointed elbow.

"What are you doin' here?"

Pris exhaled smoke, mouth puckering, and then stepped forward, shoving him out of the way with her shoulder. Hannibal allowed this, falling with a dull _thud_ against the door and staring at the back of her head. She stood in the middle of the room, head still bowed and her cigarette burning dark orange between two fingers, swaying from one foot to the other, inhaling the smell of dust and nicotine.

Their sitting room was particularly nicer than the rest of the house: the walls were painted sloshy taupe, with two sunken brown leathers sofas, a small flowery red lamp on a stand, a collection of porn magazines beside the wooden fireplace with its grey marble tiles, and a TV in the corner with a twisted aerial sat atop it – Bucks Fizz were miming tawdrily now. Pris rubbed her palms over her face, white and stony with anger, and then said, "So _pissed_ off."

She was.

He stood, observing her carefully, sweating beer can in hand. Noticing the cold flush on her face, he crossed the room to turn up the gas fire with a hiss, and then grasped her shoulder and then pushed her down onto the sofa.

"Sit down a bit. One minute," he said, and then went into the kitchen, just opposite the sitting room. She only then realised he was frying something, smelt meat and fat. "I'm makin' a bacon sandwich an' we've got some black pudding. Been frickin' starving all day."

Pris nodded, crushing her cigarette into the ashtray on the floor. Hannibal had been smoking up, she realised. His packet of Sobranie Blacks were open on the lamp stand and the ashtray was half full. Only Hannibal had the lung capacity to smoke a whole pack in under an hour, she was sure of it.

She wriggled her feet. The socks were too small, socks she'd worn in her schoolgirl days; they were wet and rubbing skin from her toes.

"Alright, wait there," Hannibal called above the clatter of knives. He had turned the fire up to eye-watering hotness, and Pris' hands and cheeks ached against the heat of it. He came back with a plate in hand, a chunk of black pudding and a sloppy bacon sandwich on it, oozing melted butter and grease and HP sauce. He sat down beside her, placing the beer can on the floor and the plate on his lap.

It was only apparent then that he was slightly tipsy; the familiar lazy smile was on his face. He picked up one half of the sandwich and then pushed it in front of her face.

"Eat that," he spat, "and tell me what all this bloody – bloody shit is about."

She took the sandwich and bit into it, butter and sauce slithering down onto her chin; she had never quite understood why he had to lacquer bacon sandwiches in butter. She wiped it away with the back of her hand and then ran it over her chequered blue shirt, leaving a sticky, glistening, tar-coloured streak beneath one flat breast.

"Well?"

"Mum's had her boyfriend around tonight," she said through a gobful of bacon and tobacco, mouth dribbling grease.

"Oh," he said. He began eating his sandwich, glowering at Bucks Fizz, and changed the channel to The Evening News. Now the TV, crackling through static, showed Margaret Thatcher, in pearl earrings and a pearl necklace and a blue dress, shaking hands with another suit. "Fuckin' shady old bitch," he garbled.

Like most people he was jobless because of the wrinkled ginger bat, and making (or rather, losing) money by betting on dog fights; which Pris especially liked. Money he made was spent on his luxury Sobranie cigarettes or in the cafe.

She took another bite, swallowed it, and then sniffed. Hannibal, unusually affectionate after knocking back a few, placed a gooey kiss on her temple and shuffled closer. His warm, beery breath sputtered through him and over her neck, her cheeks; it was weirdly calming.

"Third boyfriend this month," she added, shaking her head. "He's a wanker like the rest of 'em, of course, but apparently he's well-to-do. I don't really care. She can do what she likes – _who_ she likes."

"What's the problem, if he's coughing up?"

Remembering he was slightly tipsy, Pris didn't swat her palm across his face. Instead she said, licking the butter off her mouth, glaring at him, "The _problem_ is he's barely been in my house a week and he's already tellin' me to turn my music down and complaining about the way I make tea. Acting like he owns the place. And Mum reckons he's going to be mine and Bill's 'new Dad'."

Hannibal had gnawed his way through the sandwich. He didn't eat the crust, and so he dropped it onto her plate. Pris immediately dipped it into the deep amber puddle of sauce and butter, inhaling through her nose.

"He's a joke," she murmured.

"Yeah. You make _lovely_ tea."

"I just got up and pissed off," Pris shrugged, chewing the soggy bread crust. "I just pissed right off. I thought 'You can bloody forget this, telling me what to do, I'm gone, mate' and I just went."

Hannibal made a happy purring noise, like a broken vacuum.

"And you just came here?"

"No."

"No?"

"No. I was planning on collecting some dog shit, actually, for his letterbox," she said simply, "but then I didn't bother. Forgot to bring mittens and a bag for it."

Hannibal laughed, squeezing his eyes shut, beating a fist on the arm of the sofa. He sniggered, "You're a genius."

Pris smiled exhaustedly at him in return, happy to be here and be fed, even if it was a burnt bacon sandwich. She sighed and leaned back into the sofa, it's old, cracked leather and dirty scent. It was at that point she wondered if his Dad was at home, and then reasoned he probably wasn't. He wouldn't have allowed her in otherwise.

They'd been together four months, as far as she could remember, but she'd only met his Father once – and that had been a sleepy, mumbled handshake when she had walked in and found him snoring and topless in the armchair.

The time read almost quarter-past ten; she would have to leave soon, but didn't want to do so still feeling quite this livid. Finishing her sandwich and turning her head to gaze at the side of his face, the puckered, purple streaming eye and curved mouth, torn leaky red. She asked, thinking of Billy, "When you taking me to the fights, then?"

Hannibal, still focused on the TV, replied, "Soon." He had promised to take her weeks ago and was expecting one of her thin, jagged smiles in response, but she didn't smile: she was still sour-milk-white with anger. "When I get money."

"You've only got to pay to get in," Pris said plainly. "We haven't got to worry about placing bets."

He snorted and swallowed, running a hand over his dark, grainy head. "That's the fun though, isn't it?"

"Not really. I don't want to waste money. Spend all day in fuckin' Tesco for it, don't I?"

He grinned at her knowingly, her navy blue work fleece – with a name tag (_My name is Priscilla – and I'm happy to help!_) and a logo – still wrapped around her. She'd doomed herself to work there forever, he had realised: eighteen, fresh out of school without a single passed exam, straight away sent to stock shelves and cash in money for crappy machine-made Angel Cake.

"I'm completely skint after my haircut, anyway," she said. "It'll wait."

He nodded and then pressed his knife into the black pudding, metal scraping. Pris grimaced at the inside, marbled white and red with blood and fat. "That's nasty stuff, y'know," she said, "It's just blood."

He cut through the congealed piglet blood nonetheless – Hannibal told his brother of the production process many a time, and still he hadn't found that it even slightly off-putting. He rolled his eyes at her.

"Shut up an' have a cigarette," he huffed, and then threw the packet of Black Russians into her lap. She took one and lit it with a girlish twist of her skinny fingers, and he ripped a hefty chunk out of the black pudding. It crunched, slippery in his mouth.

Pris, watching this, raised her eyebrows smiled at him hugely, lips skimming back from her dull, baby-like teeth.

"God, you're vile," she mumbled around the cigarette, flame's sparkle in the dark blue wateriness of her eyes, "I mean, this your idea of romantic, Niccals? You're supposed to be cheering me up."

"Doin' my best, ain't I?" he said, gulping down and then cutting his final piece of pudding.

"Course you are, Romeo, really healing me with your love." Pris chuckled, smoke dwindling up grey and eerie behind her shoulder. They fell into silence at that, both watching it, Hannibal grinning dopily, gulping down more black pudding. When he had finished it he put the plate on the floor, and then downed the last of his beer.

He was _tired_ now; his mouth felt all smooth and parched, like glass and sandpaper, and his eyes were hot and heavy. He wanted to sleep.

"I want to sleep," he told her.

Pris hummed in reply.

"Right. Well, I'm using you as a pillow."

Without invitation he leaned over the sofa, placed her plate on the floor, and then his head on her lap. To his surprise, she began smoothing his shirt with one small hand – he could feel all of the little bones in it, like in a bird's wing – and then pecked the top of his head. Her hands, he found, were too strong for something so small.

"Alright," she said.

He closed his eyes, ready for that swollen, drunken sleep to arrive, comfortable and warm in the leather, on the cold, damp fabric of Pris' jeans, in the smell of her.

It never generally happened like this: usually he'd shout at her when he was drunk and then regret, always regret it and _hate_ it the next morning while he was retching into the toilet or dry-swallowing aspirins. This, now, was _good_. He was glad she was here, as odd as it was: Pris never turned up anywhere she wasn't wanted.

"Wake me up when you're leavin'," he said.

"Why?" She asked, stubbing her cigarette, "Don't be -"

"I'll walk you back," he said with a groggy smile, but Pris shook her head.

"It don't matter. I'll get going in a minute; I just needed to get out for a bit."

"No rush. He won't be back all night."

Understanding, Pris sighed and then settled back into the sofa. It couldn't hurt to stay. She felt better, she felt calmer now; a sensation similar to the dull bliss after puking. On the television, Thatcher was finally gone; and in her place was tonight's episode of _The Price Is Right_. Hannibal's breathing was loud and steady, and soon, she knew, he would be asleep – frozen save the rise and fall of his chest and the pulse in his throat. His eyes, usually raw, glossy black, were now hooded and began flickering, gleaming as if dead.

She took her attention from his face when he heard the sound of someone on the stairs.

Walking down, fag bitten between his teeth, was Hannibal's younger brother. He was sockless, in blue denims and a crinkly black t-shirt, longish hair in his eyes. He glanced up at her, an eyebrow raised, and scowled at Hannibal's shoulder.

Gesturing with the cigarette to her, he barked, "Who the fuck's she?"

"Just get out," Hannibal said sleepily, inhaling heavily through his mouth with his eyes still closed, "its grown-ups time now, poppet."

His brother scoffed, "Mm. Fucking X-rated, this is."

Hannibal still hadn't opened his eyes, hadn't moved. Finally turning to look at him, he snarled, swiping out a hand aimlessly in the air, "Christ's sake, just _go_ away. Pain in my fuckin' arse, you are."

"Right," said his younger brother, nodding slowly and smirking. "So, are you not goin' to introduce me to ya lady friend?"

"Go away, or I'm gonna _smash_ your nose in, Murdoc," Hannibal spat, and then swiped out again.

Murdoc chuckled and then stepped back, blinking carelessly at the hand flapping before his face. "O.K., _fine_. Keep y'hair on, yeah?"

Immediately she sought out something Hannibal-like in him – if he had the eyes or the hands – but he didn't look like Hannibal. Similarity ended at the black hair and sickly skin. He was young – couldn't have been older than sixteen – and he had a smaller nose, thicker upper lip, deep-set eyes, dark and intent; his Mother's face, clearly. Hannibal's nose was long and thin and his mouth was arched, and the lower lip was thicker than the upper lip, and his eyes were heavily-lidded.

Hannibal was nothing but his Father.

To her this was a little like looking windows of a dolls house – images of things, broken, miniscule. But enough to keep her wondering for a while.

* * *

**A/N: So, here it is – my first ever chaptered fanfic. This has been something I've wanted to do for a while now, but always seemed to lack the time/dedication to made frequent updates. Anyway, I've decided that this idea had to be written, and so here it is.**

**I don't want too give much away here, but I will tell you that this story is, mostly, about Murdoc Niccals. I've always believed that people creations, physically and mentally, and so Murdoc has always been a character that's fascinated me. This is about what drives us to becoming poor, messed-up bullying speed-freaks. There will be a love triangle, there will be hints of incestuous desire, there will be skinheads, and for good measure/tradition, there will be several cameo appearances of other 'background' characters, namely Paula Cracker, Billy-Boy, and Jacob Niccals. :D**

**This is also my first attempt at creating an OC, wee Priscilla. I've kind of gone against everything people would expect with her. She's not a nice girl, as you will soon be/are aware of. **

**Also, I'd really like to thank cherry-magpie-x, for all of her encouragement and loveliness. She is quite simply, blingin'. **

**Hope you liked, and please let me know if this is worth continuing. :)**


	3. Chapter Two

"He asleep yet?"

Murdoc leaned against the doorframe of the kitchen, bottle of gold-capped milk in his hand, the glass glimmering with beaded water. He had been waiting for fifteen minutes for Hannibal to fall to sleep again, quite sure if he pushed any further he would have ended up with his nose bone punched back into his skull. The girl on the sofa glanced at him carelessly, frowning upon seeing sweat from his upper lip trickle into the bottle as he drank. It curdled to the consistency and appearance of dog sick. He drank it down.

Still, he had no idea who she was, but she seemed the perfect woman for his brother; foul-mouthed and loud. Within the last fifteen minutes she hadn't stopped speaking into his brother's ear, sat there in her Tesco work fleece and brown leather loafers. She wasn't particularly nice to look at; she was tall, pale, with a pussycat face and a white-blonde Chelsea-girl cut. He had tried, but nonetheless, he could not find any appeal in a girl with half of her hair shaved off her fucking head.

"He is, yeah," she said.

Glad of this, he walked back into the sitting room and sat in the squashy armchair directly before the TV, feet spread out over the dove grey carpet, milk in hand. He took another swig.

"You still 'aven't told me who you are, y'know," he reminded her. She turned to him again, sighing in a classically patronising, bitchy manner.

"I'm your brother's girlfriend. Ain't it obvious?"

Murdoc grinned; she was going to make this a lot of fun.

"_Oh_. Girlfriend, is it?"

"Yeah," she answered bluntly, quietly. He waited for something else, but she said nothing. He continued regardless.

"Well, _that's _different. We're very – ah, ha – similar in some ways. We've got a little system."

She raised her eyebrows at him, thick pink mouth pinching in one corner.

"Really?" she asked, voice dull.

She looked down at his brother's face. His mouth was open, a thick dark cavern breathing sticky alcoholic heat into her eyes, revealing tonsils that were there but shouldn't have been. In this light the bruise on his face seemed brighter and broader; blood had bloomed to a purple flower on the surface of his skin. It was not a particularly bad bruise, Murdoc had seen worse; some pulsing, forked red with broken capillaries, others raised to black domes.

Bruises were usually shared here. He'd seen worse. He'd _had_ worse.

"Mm," he nodded. "See, usually, it's just ask out, take out, _eat_ out. If you – well – if you catch my drift."

The girl pressed her lips together, refusing to look at him. Her fingers had paused stiffly at the words as they ran across the red threads in Hannibal's shirt. She slid her hands off him completely after a few seconds, and then cocked her head back in his direction. The expression was one of amusement and disgust, Murdoc knew it well. He found it, strangely, as hilarious as it was dismaying.

"Know how to make 'um feel special, don't you?"

Murdoc found himself laughing, rocking forwards slightly, holding the milk upright on the arm of the chair.

"You should count y'self lucky," he shrugged, laughter finally sobered. It left traces in his eyes. "It's a real privilege, actually."

Her eyes, round and large and blue, slipped over him once, and then she returned to rubbing her little fingers over the fabric of Hannibal's clothing. He had never seen anybody do this before.

"How old are you, anyway, bottle-feed?" she asked coolly. A smile ripped back her lips from her teeth: they seemed blunt, but from the giant berry-coloured marks he had seen on Hannibal's throat, her bite was like that of a teething kitten. The image of her gnawing flesh seemed oddly fitting – she was Hannibal's girlfriend, after all.

Murdoc glared at the top of her head, placing the milk on the lamp stand, amusement almost entirely gone.

"Fourteen," he said sharply.

Her smile widened as she looked at Hannibal's shoulders, his muscles flexing sleepily. "All makes sense then," she replied, and then turned her pussycat face up at him again, grinning still. "Funny, actually, I thought you was older."

He took another glug of milk and then scowled at the TV, desperate to change the channel, but refraining from doing so for fear of waking Hannibal.

"Why?" he ordered, narrowing his eyes.

"Well you'm tall for fourteen, and – I dunno – you just look like this kid."

There was a small stretch of silence. The living room was small, cloudy with Russian cigarette smoke, thick in his chest. He felt far too close to her, could hear her wet socks squoozing as she moved her feet. Like most girls that ended up sat in this room, she was blonde, nervous, and shuffled awkwardly, but there was no grace this girl whatsoever – she had the knobby, knotty knees of a scrawny little boy, her shoulders were strong and sloping, and her head cracked around on her neck quickly and rigidly.

"What kid?"

"Just a _kid_. God, what's this, twenty questions?" She huffed, "I don't know, fuckin' 'ell. He was at this gig. You just look like him. O.K.?"

He scratched the nook of his neck thoughtfully, the sleeves of his t-shirt tacky with sweat. The fact that all of this was entirely plausible worried him.

"What gig?"

The girl ran her index finger underneath her eyes and rubbed away the black grit, muttering, "UK Subs, I think. Bloody good night."

Murdoc's voice froze in his throat, choked him momentarily. He swallowed down the taste in his mouth, like overripe grapes, and asked carefully, "What happened to the kid?"

"Got himself beat up," she responded simply, her voice calm and pleasant. Murdoc felt his eyelids fly backwards. "Gave the boys some trouble I think, must have said something. I dunno. Left him at the bus stop with some change."

He stood up quickly, shaking his head, and then put the milk back into the fridge. She watched him as he did this, a frown pouting between her eyebrows when he didn't return to the sitting room.

"Where ya gone?" she called.

He didn't reply, just stood leaning against the fridge. Now he thought about it, it made perfect sense. There had been a few girls there that night, one being particularly loud-mouthed and fond of lager, guzzled it all night; must have had the yellow, flaky liver of a twenty-year wino. He couldn't quite remember her face, just the hair –and too many girls had had their hair shaved at the moment.

"_Hello_? Where ya gone?"

Murdoc kicked back off the fridge and stood, once again, in the doorway, only this time he didn't smile or lean. He stood, curious and hateful of her, heat screaming up his throat.

Her frown flattened out and then became a look of surprise, eyebrows disappearing into the thick, shiny white fringe. "What's the matter with you?"

Murdoc scoffed.

"That happen often, does it?" His heart was pounding suddenly in his ears, like a slack drum. An echo of a smile washed over him, but his mouth felt sloppy and bitter, wouldn't stretch.

"No."

"No," he said.

The girl sat there, staring, for a long time, and then her hands clawed over Hannibal's shoulders, and she looked at him as if he had become weird and distorted through frosted glass. She squinted, and she blinked, and her mouth wobbled as her words clotted.

It took her a while to speak. Her eyes grew wide: opaquely blue, the whites doll-like, plastic looking, in her face.

"That was _you_?"

Murdoc shook his head at her, chuckled. "Bloody good night, was it?"

Immediately her jaw snapped shut, and her face warped oddly, squashed up. He wanted to smack her. He had seen that look before too: she'd probably feel bad now and insist upon her inability to change things. It was called pity. Seeing it never failed send a punch to his guts, never failed to piss him off – but nonetheless he enjoyed reaping the rewards.

It lost its flavour after a while.

She didn't answer him; just sat cool and numb, mute, stared. When she did speak it was what he expected; a tiny, hissy voice, white-faced and stern.

"I didn't know it was you."

He pushed his dark hair out of his eyes and smiled at her, exaggeratedly slow and wid. It felt taut and sharp on his face. "Would it 'ave made any difference?"

She felt guilty about this, and, clearly, she didn't like it. He didn't like her.

He pushed a cigarette between his lips and lit it with Hannibal's expensive gold embossed Zippo lighter. He took in smoke and released it in her direction, watching with a strange and morbidly silent fascination as the blue-coloured wisps clouded her features, crowded her in poison.

"I didn't know," she kept saying, eyes still like plastic. "I didn't know you was _little_. I didn't know you was _little_ –"

I didn't know you were Hannibal's brother, I didn't know you didn't have a Mum – nobody _knew_ anything, did they? They just screamed and shouted and left a nice excuse to clean up all the shit in they left behind.

"I'm not _little_," he cut her off suddenly, aware of the childishness of it, and therefore surprise by the sudden sober, silent look on her face. "Stop sayin' that."

She didn't say anything again. Murdoc exhaled dryly, his mouth still coated silkily with milk and cigarettes. Hannibal's body heaved now, barely coffined in sleep. The girl too noticed this, still persisting to look at his face in that way. He lowered his head and stared right back at her now, challenging, waiting for something.

But she did nothing.

Instead, she scooted forwards on the sofa and lifted Hannibal's head from her lap, in pale, warm hands, before raising it above her legs, sliding from underneath it, and placing it back down. There was something practised and nurse-like about the motion; she might have been lowering a patient back into his bed, or protecting a baby's skull. Hannibal was out cold with sleep. He twitched, rolled further onto his side, and then became quiet and breathy again.

"I'm going," was all she said.

His eyes grew wider.

"What?"

"I'm goin'. I need to go. My – I had an argument with my Mum's new bloke and they'll be worried," she said tartly, "yeah?"

Murdoc frowned at her, confused and irritated, as she stood and began brushing down her jeans with thick, muscley hands.

"Really, I didn't know about that and I was drunk," she told him firmly, spitefully, he supposed, "So, I don't – so, y'know. I didn't know. Ain't my fault. No-one said anything. You were just on the floor, I didn't even know what you looked like properly. I couldn't have done anything anyway and I was drunk. And you probably pissed 'um off anyway and you know you shouldn't piss off your brother. I bet you know that. Everyone knows that don't they?"

Everything she had said was true, he supposed, he couldn't remember much of it, just the taste of knuckles in his mouth, but, whatever had happened, it couldn't have been too gruesome. Not a single scratch had been on his face after all – it was all just painful blotches in the chest and stomach. He supposed it had all been deliberate on Hannibal's part, and was still unsure which emotions would be appropriate to feel.

Initially he had been consumed, completely, with that blind, kiddish hatred – he had wanted to mix bleach with his marmalade one morning, but hadn't managed to open the bottle, rendered useless by the twisting clods of pain in his torso. And now, after all of that, everything had been splintered with gratitude – he hadn't completely battered him, after all.

She was blabbering madly now, scooping her hands into the huge pockets of the navy blue fleece and then drawing them out repeatedly. She looked lost for a moment, moving around jumpily, like a cat fed on raw meat.

"So I need to go. Don't wake him up."

Murdoc sucked on his cigarette. "He asked you to wake him up."

She didn't think to question how he knew this. She replied, "He's tired. I'll be fine."

Zipping up the jacket, she caught her finger in it and swore under her breath flimsily before bending down, pushing a hard kiss on Hannibal's temple, and crossing the room to open the front door.

"Alright. Fuck you, then," Murdoc shrugged. She didn't hear him, or, at least, pretended not to. He didn't care. For good measure, she slammed the door behind her, the glass shaking inside of it. Hannibal's eyes opened.

It was different when they had faces, she found.

When she walked outside the rain was gone, but the bruises in the sky were not. She walked back home hating the boy, bad feelings like slices of ice in her brain.

It was _his_ fault she felt bad again. Everything was bad again.

Although, she was glad she had not woken Hannibal to walk her home. Because he would slow down, and she would speed up, but somehow, when they walked, they never fell into step.

* * *

**A/N: So, Chapter Two! A little one, I know. Bear with me. We'll get to the juicy bits soon. Promise. :) This is it, anyway. A little interaction between Murdoc and Pris, which you are either going to love or hate... I've always found it difficult, writing first impressions. Opinions, anyone? **

**I'd really like to thank cherry-magpie-x and SalekDarling for their lovely, lovely reviews. Left me walking around in a happy-bubble for the majority of the week. **

**You know what to do, anyway. I'd mega appreciate feedback. :D **


	4. Chapter Three

"But I _got_ us these tickets."

"I know," came Pris' voice, broken and whirring through the telephone. "I just don't fancy it."

Hannibal's fingers wound backwards, and his left hand became a fist, resting against the rough, bumpy surface of the wallpaper. He gritted his teeth, the bone clacking and squeaking, and then pushed the phone harder into the side of his face. He did not understand this. He hadn't seen her in a week, and it was getting to him.

"You _always_ fancy it."

He looked at Murdoc through his bad eye. The colours through it were eerie and mutilated, and in the mirror it looked like the eye of a butchered fish; he couldn't see through it properly.

But he most definitely _saw_ Murdoc.

Gangly and tallish, he was sat on the arm of Dad's armchair, legs on the seat, elbows on his knees, eating dry toast. He was in Hannibal's old school uniform, the shirt a stale, yellowish white and creased, the knees of the trousers worn through, the faded tie. There had been one time in which he had pulled that tie around his neck like a little red-and-yellow-striped noose. Now, he was contemplating doing it again. Jammy little bastard.

Pris was talking into his ear again, cold and screaming through plastic and copper wires. "Look, I just don't. For God's sake. It's eight o'clock in the bloody mornin', sweet, O.K.? Just shut up and go to bed or something. I've got work in a bit."

He growled, "Alright. Yeah, great, Prissy. You-"

"Don't call me fuckin' Prissy, Hans."

"Don't keep lyin' ta me then!"

She sighed down the phone and it sounded like an electric shredder. "I'm not lying. I'm just not bothered about the fights no more. Give the ticket to someone else."

"But you love the –"

"Why don't you give it to your brother?"

He was rattling with anger, and a foul, meaty taste had grown in his mouth. The muscles in his shoulders trembled, and then froze taut. She was speaking to him, ("Hans? Hans, you there?") but still, as he looked at his brother, he had to swallow down that familiar hot, coppery slab of hate.

He managed, through teeth clattering like a broken mousetrap, "Now, why would you go and say that?"

Pris did not sound worried in the slightest. Her voice, in his ear, was pleasantly girlish and peaceful as always, "I spoke to him last week. Think you need some quality time, duck, that's all. And brothers should share things, you know."

Hannibal shook his head, and then, when realising she could not see him, he replied, "You're a nasty little _bitch_." A thin, glistening string of saliva fell onto the phone's speaker. "I don't want ta fuckin' see you anyway."

And then, hoping she could hear the ferocity of it, he slammed the phone back into the cradle so hard that the mirror on the wall shivered. His little brother turned at the noise.

"What's goin' on?"

Hannibal, his frustration building to a nice throbbing in his throat and a delicately flexing muscle in his temple, took three steps forward. Thumbs hooked under his belt, he became a terrifyingly accurate replica of Dad. They both wore brown leather belts with silver hooks; brown leather belts that stung happily on backflesh and faceflesh.

"That was Prissy," he said, willing her to hear it somehow.

Murdoc tore off another bit of toast and lazily flicked crumbs from his knees. He wouldn't look. The grease in his hair moved with rainbow lights in the sunshine, streaming through the window. When he spoke, he scratched his forearm and stared at the TV.

"Oh?"

Hannibal didn't hesitate. There was no point. "Yeah, it was. What did you say to her last week?"

Finally Murdoc turned his head to look at him, eyes flitting up and down the long, wasted body. Once again he turned away to speak, and when he did his voice was monotone. "Nothin'."

"Nothin'?" Hannibal squealed in imitation, cocking an eyebrow. "Well it didn't seem like nothin'!"

The only barrier between them was the sofa. Hannibal was stood behind it, adjacent to the front door, right below the archway leading into the sitting room; a vision of Dad.

Currently, Dad was sleeping in his room, in last night's 'best' purple satin shirt and a pair of ragged black trousers. Hannibal had been to check on him this morning, as always.

In his room, Mum's old white woollen jumper hung on the wardrobe, rotting and gathering dust as things do on graves. It was a vision of white in the dark. An impression of a woman. If you opened the door too quickly, sometimes, it would flutter down to the floor like a small, wounded ghost.

"You're mad, Hans."

He yowled, spit flying, dotting onto his chin, "Why won't she see me, then? Why won't she come to the dog fights? Why did she mention you? You _listenin'_ to me?"

And, like the arrogant, skinny prick that he was, Murdoc shrugged and glowered.

"_I_ don't know, do I?" he barked, "Why didn't ya just ask 'er?"

Hannibal's smile was like chips of cracked glass. "You've said somethin', 'aven't you?"

Murdoc did not reply, and Hannibal growled, joyous and infuriated. Something had happened, he was sure of it – and it would undoubtedly be Murdoc's fault.

"You got somethin' to worry about, then?"

Hannibal certainly saw him.

"Don't you start with ya fuckin' mind games on me, mate," he hissed, and then leaned over the sofa at him, his bad eye glittering saline and clotted blood, the eye of a ghastly broken dolly. The light from the window was on one side of his face now, bleaching it, the grooves of Gillette razor blade scars across his scalp exaggerated in its brilliance. "Yeah, I see _you_, nasty little twat."

His little brother's eyes skimmed over his head, analytical and derisive, and then, to his surprise, looked directly back at him. He swallowed his toast and licked his mouth, reptilian.

"Hans," he said, already finding this tiresome, "I don't care about your stupid girlfriend. She's a slag, an' I wouldn't touch her with a bloody bargepole, so -"

"_One_ more word out of you, and I'll break y'nose!"

It was Dad's line, of course, but Hannibal was enjoying being Dad far too much now. Pris was stupid, and a slag, and she did deserve it; but not from his little brother.

Somewhere along the line he had grown to like Pris more than expected; more than he had liked anyone, he supposed. He couldn't quite fathom how it had happened, after fourteen years he still did not like his brother (he had locked him in the wardrobe when he was five years old, and would happily have done it again he had not grown so tall), and certainly not Dad or anyone from school.

It made sense, though. She shaved his head like a barber and she didn't care about his spitting or his shitty Doc Marten imitation boots. She let him mouth off at her and she let him shag her and she let him apologise and let herself believe in him, but he supposed the main factor was her eyes, because, cutting off the lower half of her face, she might have been a blonde Karen Carpenter. He wouldn't have people talk about her like that.

This would have been the perfect opportunity to clout him in the face, smash his head against the fireplace, no-one would be around to stop him; Dad was sleeping, the street was silent.

But he reconsidered quickly. There was an odd code between them; no hitting until the bruises had healed. After the gig, Murdoc had arrived with blackened blood teeth his teeth and a pale pink, goopy mixture of snot and something else seeping out of his nostrils. By now his nose had healed, but his mouth was still fatter than usual, and so instead of hitting him in the face, he just leaned back, and Murdoc turned away once again.

Hannibal pointed one finger at the back of his head, like the barrel of a gun, and said, "I'm goin' ta find her. And if I find out you've said anythin' I'm goin' to wring ya neck."

Murdoc shoved the last bit of toast into his mouth, flicking crumbs from his chest, and then walked straight past him, ignoring the gun barrel as it nudged the curve of his skull.

"Fuck off, Hans."

He left the house slinging a school blazer over his shoulder, and Hannibal was left, as always, watching leave, watching him arrive, and watching him poison things as he did so. It seemed Murdoc could not move or look someone in the eye without dribbling venom.

It was unfortunate that Hannibal remembered those eyes were his Mother's.

* * *

**A/N: In light of cherry-magpie-x's tribute, this fic has been re-uploaded. :D I can't guarantee frequent updates, but that fic deserves it's sister to be around. Please, see 'Pinch', review and adore! Cherry, you know what I'm going to say. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all of the motivation you've made for me. And of course, SalekDarling. Twinny, I love ya, and thank you millions for every wonderful review and message. I don't know what this'd be without you. Go, read 'The Fedora', and understand why I'm so honoured to have her words of encouragement. :)**

**So, this was the beginnings of a third chapter that I started that I ended up scrapping out of exam-stress. I finished it up today. I hope you all enjoy it, and thank you for your support, everyone. SNUGGLES FOR YOU ALL IN ABUNDANCE. :D**


	5. Chapter Four

"You," said a voice, "are going to get yourself into trouble."

Pris turned.

"What?"

"Smoking all those cigarettes," said Martha, stood just behind her, hesitant and twitchy in her uniform. "They're not good for you."

Pris shook her head and turned away, exhaling her venomous mist in a single sound – _aah_. Martha winced, a tiny wrinkle pressing in the corner of her eye. Her brown hair was lank, wilting over her thin, long face, and her eyes looked like sour green jelly-sweets.

"Seriously, you're smoking too many. It's barely nine o'clock and you've had _six_ fag breaks. Come back inside or Jane'll have your guts for garters."

"Tell Jane to suck my dick."

Martha frowned and her mouth clicked open slightly. "I'm not doing that."

Pris smiled at her jaggedly.

"Look, I'm being serious," Martha insisted blandly. "You're supposed to be on the checkout now."

Pris took her last drag on the cigarette and focused on the pane of clear glass before her. "It's nine in the morning; no-one's goin' to be here for at least another hour. Look about."

Tesco was situated in the town centre, opposite a circle of blue metal benches and a row of small shops. Currently, a single person stood in the centre beside a telephone box, a dark stain on the pale, swirling grey horizon. Pris leaned heavily against one of the floor-length shop windows. Her reflection on it was indefinite; a groaning, white skull-shape instead of a face.

"That's not the point. It's your work duty to be on the checkout now," Martha pushed, her face appearing behind Pris', a yellow oval on the glass. "Put that fag out."

"I'm finished anyway," Pris said, and dropped it onto the floor with her tongue lolling between her lips.

Martha nodded. "O.K., so get on the checkout, then."

"Of course," Pris said, her voice steady, cigarette-dried. She shoved the door open with the heel of her shoe and stared at the side of Martha's face, smirking.

The forecast for the day was moderate to fair. Pris sat at her place behind the cash register and stared out at the empty street, its bones bleached in the light. It was funny, she thought, how everything seemed to bleed in the sunlight.

* * *

One hour later Hannibal Niccals was stood in the cakes and biscuits aisle, watching her through a butchered eye. In one hand he held a plastic packet of Angel Cake. Last night's beer was stale in his mouth, he hadn't shaved or eaten, and he stank of baby medicine (which had no affect whatsoever on the pulsing pain in his eye).

Sat at her place, Pris continued counting change for her customer. As usual she wore a tranquil expression, but still there was that wicked quirk to her brow. She smiled as she put the pennies into the guy's hand. She had not changed.

Hannibal scoffed. He snatched up another packet of cake and moved heavily and quickly down towards her, shoes clanking around like metal chains, growing slowly looser as he approached her. He dropped the cake onto the tabletop.

"Mornin', beautiful," he said.

She glanced up at him, blinked, wet her lips, and shook her head.

"Oh, for God's sake, Hans," she huffed.

He placed two slips of blue paper in front of her and snapped, "There's your tickets. I promised I'd take ya. I got 'em."

Pris glowered. "Did y'not fuckin' hear me on the phone?"

"What?"

"I said I didn't wanna go," she growled.

She did, but frankly she wanted to avoid spending time with him as much as possible at the moment. After talking to his brother that bad feeling – the guilt – hadn't quite died away. He was a kid, and she had been there, stood beside his brother laughing and roaring, senseless in the urgency for bloodshed. The dog-fights induced pretty much the same thing. And while two animals tearing each other apart had once been maddeningly exciting, she wasn't quite sure anymore.

She remembered the last fight: the losing bull terrier had lay there, its blood staining the black pelt oily brown, mouth open and drooling dark saliva, with one hind leg twitching crazily as it panted. Had Murdoc Niccals lay that way, blood-oil in his hair, jolting with muscle spasms, weeping?

"Without any reason," Hannibal shot back.

Pris said nothing. There was a pause. Jane, the floor-manager, was watching her stood on her tiptoes, frowning.

"I spoke to him last night, y'know."

She asked, her voice cool, "Who?"

"My brother."

"Oh."

Hannibal said loudly, "Yeah. I spoke to him about the other night, actually. When you ran away an' didn't talk to me for three days."

Pris couldn't escape. He was hurt, and accusing her, but none of this – she would insist to herself and everyone else – was her fault. She had done nothing wrong.

"You'd been out with Tony, hadn't you?" She replied calmly, eyes narrowing, "you'd obviously been drinking. How do you even remember that?"

Hannibal said clearly, definitely, "I made you a bacon sandwich. An' he came down when I was going to sleep."

"And you told him to go away," Pris finished. She smiled, bitter.

"But he didn't."

A silence followed. Pris stared back into the veiny, streaming eyes lifelessly.

"What did he say to you?"

"Nothin'."

"_Funny_!" Hannibal barked, a lashing of saliva across the tabletop. "He said exactly the same thing."

Pris pressed her lips together, sighed, and then gestured to the cake. "Do you actually want that, or –"

He was too fast. "No, stop that. Don't try and get out of this."

Hannibal was stern now, glittering pain and sweat in front of her. His hand jumped down, snatched up hers, and crushed it in his fist. She supposed he hadn't meant it to hurt. The sun was in her eyes and she couldn't see his face properly, she couldn't tell.

"Wait -"

"No, _don't_," he seethed. His grip tightened. "The little bastard messes everythin' up – _everythin'_ – I ain't having him messing up me and you too."

"Let go."

"I –"

"_Excuse_ me!"

Pris was startled. Her head bolted upright and in the direction of what was clearly Jane's voice; shrill, twanging. She stood with her arms folded in a navy blue blouse, glasses blinking in the sunbeams. Her tight, brassy red perm consumed her whole head, and most of her small, pointed face.

Hannibal was unfazed. He cocked an eyebrow and snarled, "What, lady?"

Jane dismissed him completely, and turned to Pris looking horrified and infuriated all at once, ready to take one of two courses of action: she was about flee, or rip Hannibal's bollocks off. Pris swallowed.

"Priscilla, is everything quite alright here?"

"Yeah, yeah," Pris said, desperately wriggling her fingers through Hannibal's. He clenched his fist. "'S fine, Janey. Just, give us a minute."

Jane shook her head, the bouncy curls waggling, dog-like, about her ears. "I'm afraid I can't do that, Priscilla, as you well know. Please escort –"

Hannibal cut in, spittle bursting out from his lips, "I ain't _finished_."

Pris tugged frantically at him, but it made no difference. He stood there smirking in his usual malicious indifference.

"I think you'll find you are."

"No I _won't_, 'cos I'm buying some frickin' cake," he retorted crudely, and then waved a packet in the air.

Jane's mouth drooped and then blinked twice. She stepped back. "Then purchase your items and leave," she managed, drawing herself up. "Or I'm calling security."

"Fine, O.K.."

Jane made her leave, glancing over her shoulder. Hannibal turned back to Pris with a new determination. He didn't let go.

"If nothin' happened then you won't mind telling me about it, will you?" He hissed. Pris nodded her agreement and scanned the first packet of cake. "What did you talk about, then?"

"He asked me about us," Pris began slowly, buying her time. She could never predict his next reaction or action, and it worried her greatly. The last thing she wanted was the kid to get into deeper shit. "Get off me."

He didn't.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I just told him I was your girlfriend," she said. He seemed satisfied.

"It's that, ain't it? He's said something stupid and you've gone and got all pissed off and overreacted," he said heatedly. Pris shook her head and bared her teeth.

"No. We talked about the last gig we went to, as a matter o'fact."

Hannibal frowned, and she tasted the bitter vinegar of his hate.

He was wearing her favourite denim jacket with the hole on the left sleeve, that was tarnished a pale, dull blue and smelt like dry grass and ashtrays. She remembered falling asleep on his shoulder two months ago on a park bench, fed on Cola and laughter. The memory of it didn't move her anymore. He felt changed now.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. You beat up someone."

"So?"

She smiled, strangely enough.

"He's got a fat lip, 'asn't he, your brother?"

"He's been selling you shit, Pris."

Pris thrashed her way out of his grip, grunting harshly, "Get off, get off – get _off_ me!" Hannibal only fought for a while. After a few seconds he dropped her hand onto the table, his face blank.

"Whatever he said, it's all shit."

She glared back into his good eye, weird and swarthy, the other swirling blood and cloud. As her eyes ran across the straight length of bone, his jaw, his cheeks, his collarbone, her organs began that familiar hurried pace, pulse fluttering in her wrists. She wished it would go away.

"Why'd you do it?" She asked boldly. For a moment she thought he didn't have an answer.

Then he said, "I didn't want you to find out."

"Does that make it all better, then? You mean bastard. He's your little brother!"

Pris stood up, boiling liquid in her face. A few people had turned to watch them injudiciously, glancing over their hands. She ignored them.

"You've broken ya head, Hannibal, that's not right." She scanned the final packet of Angel Cake and threw it at his chest. It hit him with a crisp, clean sound." He seems like a good kid, what's he ever done to you?"

"What _hasn't_ he done to me?"

"Oh shut up, Hans. That ain't _right_. You need to put that right."

Hannibal ignored this, and tucked the two packets of cake under his arm, his dead-fish eye flashing in the sunlight. "Fine. I'll take Tony," he said darkly, his head tilting downwards. Pris nodded.

"You do that. I'm not bothered. I can't believe you – got a bloody _nerve_."

"You don't know what –"

"Stay away from me," she interjected, and glanced down at her clawed fingers on the surface of her table. Deep down, she did feel _true_ disgust at this, and that was shocking within itself. "Just fuck off for a while, Hans. You need to make things better."

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, at home, Hannibal cut off a huge wodge of Angel Cake, slapped it onto a plate, and walked into his brother's empty room. He didn't speak to the silence.

He placed the plate on the bed.

* * *

**A/N: Ah, I'm on a roll, guys! :)**

**Hope you like this one, anyway. I doubt it'd have been written without the encouragement of kaaayyyttee, ozymandiias, SweetCherryCandy, Grimm2 and cherry-magpie-x – huge snuggles, gooey kisses and thank-yous to all of you. All of the favouriters and alerters also; I'm so glad people are enjoying this, and I hope you all enjoy this update too.**

**Next one should be on its way! :D**


	6. Chapter Five

The girls were in school skirts. Grey pleated ones with little buttons and zips at the waist. They wore ankle socks to show off the calves of their legs, some handsome and smooth, others veiny, mottled. They all wore their hair high up, the exposed skin of their necks sometimes glistening with a droplet of sweat or the chain of a silver crucifix. A gaggle of them passed him now, leaning against the wall, eyes flitting over their midriffs. Only one of them noticed this: she was a small thing, ginger and doe-eyed, freckly, sweet-looking; like a girl from a Beatles' ballad. Her cheeks blotted puce and she glanced at him disapprovingly before hurrying her way down the corridor towards the cafeteria.

At half past twelve the bell rang for lunch, but once again Murdoc had no money, and there had been nothing left to eat in the house but a packet of custard powder and Hannibal's bar of Cadbury, which he had hidden in his blazer pocket and eaten on his way to school. He was starving now, the bile in his stomach bubbling hotly, groaning.

Just opposite, leaned against the wall with his gut leaking over the waistband of his trousers, was a thirteen-year-old kid salivating over the bread of a sandwich. It was slopping mayonnaise and lettuce and clean, pink ham. Murdoc felt his upper lip flinch.

The kid wasn't old, he recognised him from the choir. He was large, but it was all jiggling fat. A group of boys passed, some of whom nodded at him coolly or muttered an "Ey, Murdoc." Murdoc smiled at each one, and then at the boy, kicking himself from the wall with his left foot.

"How much did you get that for?" He asked calmly. The boy's clear, sea-coloured eyes flickered up to his face.

"I made it this morning," he said defensively.

"Oh," Murdoc replied, raising his eyebrows. He pressed his lips together. "So... Can I 'ave a bit?"

"What – I don't – why?"

"Because I'm hungry, chum," He snapped, chuckling at the quivering dimple in the boy's cheek and gliding forwards. "C'mon, you got more than enough fat on ya to keep you running for awhile. You're like a camel, got a big block o'food right there!" For good measure, Murdoc jabbed the squidgy belly with his index finger, ensuring his nail dug into the pale pink mass of flesh.

The boy was clenching his teeth oddly. Inspiring this sort of fear in someone was mesmerising, Murdoc found – the kid was practically pissing himself, though doing his best to straighten his face and hold himself tall.

"Get your own."

"Oh, really? C'mon. Not even a little bite? A nip? A nibble?" Murdoc cooed.

"Who are you, anyway?" the boy cut in, his face folding with a frown. He looked ill with nerves; like an overfed hamster, bloodless and sickly and bloated in its cage's sawdust. "You're that Niccals boy, ain't you?"

Murdoc chose the sensible option and nodded.

The boy scoffed. "No wonder you're _begging_ then. I've seen your Dad in –"

That was enough. Murdoc's hand clawed and clamped around his, and he squeezed. The boy's fingers began to bow, and then twist, and then fall inwards on themselves, as if made of greasy rubber. There was no-one in the corridor now, aside from two small girls. Both of them looked on, puzzled, as Murdoc stood, holding his hand in the air, grunting. The corridor smelt pungently old and bitter, tasted of plums and old pamphlets and psalms and prayer books, nostalgic; the taste of God-love.

The boy shuffled awkwardly and yelped, "Lehgo! Lehgo ah me!"

"I'm not begging, because I'm not askin' you for anything. I'm _telling_ ya. Give me that, and we'll say nothing else about it," Murdoc said through his teeth, pushing closer. The boy's eyes looked back into his face nervously, split and broken and blotted purple, some sort of garish Hammer Horror phantom. The fact that such a boy attended a Catholic school seemed unlikely and unnatural, and yet here he was: crucifix probably searing the flesh of his throat, in a blazer and a tie with a bible in his bag.

He nodded. "Yeah, O.K.. Alright."

Murdoc pried the sandwich from his fingers and gnawed off a corner. It was too full, dribbling out from between the bread, but it was good.

"Well, thanks, mate," Murdoc said. "Nice talkin' to ya."

As he walked away the rosaries around his wrist glinted, like stolen jewels.

* * *

"You!"

Murdoc turned slowly, softly wiping the corner of his mouth with his thumb. He raised an eyebrow when he found the source of the yowling, and then smiled.

Walking over the length of the school's field was Phillip Morton, gold hair plastered to his forehead and slicked with gel. He was tall and beefy, blue veins twisting all over his arms and throat, teeth that could snap through a forty pence jaw-breaker. He was moving with his shoulders loose and pushed back and his steps were heavy. The freckles on his face slithered under a hot red flush. He was angry.

"What the _fuck_ do you think you're playin' at?"

Murdoc was quite sure he hadn't groped his girlfriend, and so he frowned.

"I don't know what you're on about," he shrugged. "Calm down, sweetheart. Bloody hell. Why're your knickers in a twist today?"

"You fuckin' _dick_."

Phillip was in the choir. Murdoc only knew him beneath the marvel of the stained glass singing like an angel with the rest of them. He was sneering now, and a bubbly trail of spit was on his upper lip.

"Grow some, you trampy twat. Fuckin' talking to my brother like that!"

Phillip shoved him back with two thick hands, and Murdoc stumbled slightly, grunting.

"Fat bastard didn't need it, mate. I've done him a _favour_ – last thing he wants is another clogged artery."

Phillip shoved him again, seething, "Instead of nicking other people's food I'd stick to scavenging in bins like ya Dad." And then his fist sliced downwards through the air and slapped vehemently into Murdoc's left eye.

A scream arose somewhere and a mismatch of frenzied chanting rose up.

Murdoc's vision was washed red and blood rose at the impact on his face, pulsed beneath the skin. Blinded, he hit out aimlessly. Thankfully, his fingers found the wet hollow of Phillip's mouth and he clawed into it, ripping the smooth gums with a split fingernail. A little blood spouted out. Phillip howled, tried to bite down, but Murdoc withdrew quickly enough to grab a fistful of slicked golden hair and yank it backwards. Phillip's knee socked him in his groin, and Murdoc pulled back on his head, hard. He was sent crashing into the cool grass and buttercups and dandelions. He didn't move. The chanting died away instantly.

"Jesus Christ," Staggering backwards, Murdoc felt around to check he hadn't squashed a testicle, wincing. "My bloody balls. Jesus. My –"

Phillip's teeth were shiny pink with blood.

"If you go near my brother again I'm gonna kick the shit out of ya," he wheezed. Murdoc stamped down on his hand, splayed out in the grass.

"Fuck you."

"You –"

A faceless girl's voice squeaked, "Phil, quick, move! Get up, it's –"

"Phillip Morton and Murdoc Niccals, get inside _immediately_!"

Stood on the grass, arms folded on his chest, was Mr. Windsor. Murdoc rubbed the back of his head, scowled at Phillip, and then pushed his way through the circle of people that had surrounded them. They stared after him, muttering. Phillip followed.

The walk back was a silent one, as was the wait outside of the Headmaster's office, and then the walk home.

He turned onto Amos Lane with the sun warm on his back and glowing a tantalising red through his rosary beads. In his hand was a folded envelope addressed to his father – he would have opened it, but Murdoc knew what the letter read. One week exclusion.

His house was in sight, the rotten tea-rose bush and the lattice windows and the gate. When he knocked the door, no-one was home, and so he would have to sit outside for several hours. He slid down against the door, rested his forehead on his drawn-up knees, and sighed.

On the opposite side of the street, a little girl was drawing a hopscotch on the pavement with coloured chalk. Murdoc watched her for a while, the bunches of yellow hair on her head bobbing comically, her little hands working. She spent at least ten minutes on the first square, doing her haphazard best to form lines. She danced in the dusty pink and yellow clouds the chalk created.

Murdoc didn't realise he too was being watched until somebody spoke.

"What'sa matter with you?"

It was the skinny girl with the pussycat face and white-blonde Chelsea-girl. In spite of himself and the sore heat in his eye, Murdoc smiled.

* * *

**A/N: Apologies for being so late with this update, first off – I really hope everyone enjoys it now that it's here! :D**

**Thank you, as always, for all of the support and amazingness from cherry-magpie-x, kaaayyyttee, bonexylophone and SweetCherryCandy – I gots so much love for you guys, bear hugs for all! :)**

**A huge thanks to the favouriters and alterters too; it's great to know you guys like this, it really inspires me to continue writing.**

**Thank you all, and as always, I hope y'all like this new chapter! :)**


	7. Chapter Six

A gold light was encircling her head and he couldn't see her properly, sunblind. She was a feminine chimera for a moment, featureless and white; a faded, coffee-stained polaroid. Then she stepped forward and it was gone, pale blue eyes narrowed.

"Why're you here?"

"I live here," he answered abruptly, shaking his head.

"Shouldn't you be in school?"

He clucked the air with his tongue. "You should be at work."

Pris looked about awkwardly, lips pursing, fingers curling at her sides like a lemur. She watched the little girl across the street for a while, giving Murdoc a view of the side of her face, hair neatly shaved around her ear. After a moment she turned back, uncomfortable, confrontational.

"Where's your brother?"

"I dunno. Not in, anyway. He left –"

"I know, he came to see me," she nodded once. "Will he be long, d'ya reckon?"

"I doubt it, he usually gets back for about two. Dad's always out by then, and he puts on Carpenters," Murdoc chuckled. "Sappy stuff. A Song For You, over and over. Fuckin' annoying. But I've got the house to myself before then."

Pris smiled fondly. He used to hum songs like that to her, always Carpenters: in the dark lying in bed as the night was bright behind the curtains, fluttering, the cold, the crack in the glass where the wind whistled. The first days.

She laughed – an odd, low, boyish sound – and then cocked one knee up and rested it atop the small garden wall. "The house to yourself?"

Murdoc attempted to roll his eyes, but the pain and the fat bruise made them well and glitter. He blinked a few times, hissing, and then scrubbed his eyes viciously. "Don't do that, Christ. It'll hurt ya," Pris muttered, her voice static. He did not hear her.

He said, "Yeah."

"I won't ask," she replied knowingly.

"I just sit around, put my Kate Bush stuff on," he shrugged, feeling the need to explain himself and having no idea why. Pris frowned.

"She that one with the big eyes and the high voice?"

"She's more than that," Murdoc huffed. "She's an absolute cracker."

"I like that one she did, actually. You know which one I'm on about? In that glittery leotard?"

"She wears them a lot."

"Well, it goes," Pris began, and then waved her huge hands above her head, strangely graceful in her gangly, ape-like fashion. "Ooh, he's here again!"

Murdoc nodded his understanding, "Yeah, that's my favourite at the moment." He was grinning at her again. Birds would probably fall down dead from their trees when she sang, he mused, and then was thankful that the only birds around here were fat pigeons and dusty crows that screamed in the wind.

Pris smiled back at him warily, the rest of her face scrunched. She needed lighten up, Murdoc thought tiredly. No wonder everyone hated the sights of her, she was so abrupt and cold and bloody up her own arse, so it seemed.

"D'you mind if I sit down?"

"No," he said immediately, and then wished he could have backpedalled somehow. Her presence was weirdly kind of exciting, like she might spit on you or kiss you at any moment. He understood why Hannibal liked her; but other than that she was plain and nasty. "I mean, you're someone to talk to, I suppose."

"I suppose," she said.

He decided to bring up the last time they had spoken subtly, as it was clearly the issue here. Hannibal would probably find them together and bite her tits off and break his jaw, but for now he wasn't here, and Murdoc hoped he wouldn't be for a long while. He didn't know why. He should have, and probably did, hate her: but for now it didn't matter. She sat down.

"So, you -"

Then the little girl playing hopscotch let out a yelp. It was faint, but painful, like a crushed kitten. She was lying on the floor, skirt hitched up around her white knickers, blood dribbling down one yellowing cream sock.

Murdoc was cut off. Pris raised an eyebrow and shot back up to her feet, squinting across the pavement.

"Oi," she snapped. "You alright?"

The girl sat, snot sparkling on her upper lip, glaring through tears.

"Yeah," she said though ragged breath. "I fell over. I-I need my - I want my Mummy."

"I can see. Do you want me to go and get her?" Pris asked nonchalantly. She hadn't flinched once at that crying baby-face; and it just wasn't right for a female human _not_ to react to something like this, Murdoc thought.

"No!" She squealed, "Go away! Mummy!" She vaulted to her feet and the blood seeped into the cracks of her chubby knees.

Pris scoffed, sat down, and snarled, "Fine, _whatever_. God, the fuckin' little shits around this place."

Murdoc watched the girl run back inside of her house, wailing. He shrugged, "I don't know 'em."

"You don't wanna. I hate kids, man," Pris chuckled, shaking her head. "'S like, they're all so fuckin' stupid, don't understand anything you try ta tell 'em, do they? They don't get anything. I hate kids."

"I don't think _I'm_ stupid," Murdoc said slowly, twirling his rosaries around three fingers. "I'm a kid."

"You're different, though."

She didn't look at him when she said it, but he decided to push her for an explanation anyway. Her chin tilted away from him, and it was clear she was watching the tiny stream of blood slowly steam and evaporate off the pavement.

"What do you mean by that?"

She answered immediately. "You look after your brother for me, don't ya? You haven't got much choice. Can't afford to be a stupid kid."

"I don't look after him. He can go fuck himself for all I care," Murdoc spat, staring at the smooth, white curve of her cheek.

"I know he's a bastard to you, but he likes you really, y'know, your brother."

Murdoc felt a pang of happiness. That had to be one of the nicest things anyone had said to him; aside the things girls said, whispering in his ear, licking his throat.

"You don't know him," was all he replied. He didn't want to have to deny it completely, although in his head he knew it was utterly the right thing to do, the truth. He liked pretence and romancing as much as anyone, if it meant numbing bad feelings down. He supposed they were the same in that way.

"I do, and even if I don't, I know he likes you."

"Funny way of showing it."

"It's just how he is. Don't be a prick stick."

"I'm not being a prick stick, I'm just saying, kickin' the shit out of me by a bus stop is a very weird way of showin' _affection_," he smirked. "That what he does to you when you're alone in your bedroom?"

"Oh, God, you're so fucked up," she huffed, and rested her head back against the door. "I'm not talking about that."

"Why?"

"You _want_ to know about your brother's sex life?"

"Now, wait a second -"

"I rest my case, mate. You're fucked up," she laughed, tapping her temple with her fingernail. "I don't tell people about that sort of stuff. I don't tell."

"You don't tell?" he challenged, enjoying this now. She looked quite nice, close up – all soft and peach and white and pink.

"No, I don't. I only swap my secrets," she said. "Much more interesting."

Murdoc wet his lips and nodded.

"Why?"

Pris sniggered, and said, "Because then I'll have something on you, and you'll have something on me." She looked at him directly, something predatory curling her face. "I wouldn't get yourself involved with me, if I were you. Does that make sense?"

Murdoc frowned. She was a girl. What could she possibly do that might hurt him? She didn't look stronger than he was. And what could she say? Hurtful words simply slithered off his skin now – and if they sank in, he could shed it.

"Yeah," he replied.

"Well, let's leave it at that, then."

"I don't think you could 'urt me anyway."

"I'm ya brother's girlfriend. I think that says it all."

"What if I don't care?"

Pris looked at him once again, but the hungry look trickled out of her and she seemed cold and spongy. She shook her head.

"You what?"

"I don't care," Murdoc shrugged. He didn't know what he was talking about, but it felt right.

"Well ya should," Pris snapped. "'Cause your brother came to find me this morning and he made a real fist o'what you told me. So, I think -"

"He only did that because you stopped fuckin' _talkin'_ to him afterwards," he interjected. "Nothing would have happened if you hadn't done that, gettin' all bloody dramatic about it, bloody numbskull skinny bitch, you -"

"Don't talk to me like that!" She barked, and her palm swatted the back of his head, popping his head forwards. "Learn some fuckin' manners!"

Murdoc stood up, rubbing the back of his head. "'Ey!"

"I only stopped talkin' to him because I wasn't 'appy when I found out he hurt you, for cryin' out loud. I didn't think it was right to do that. I was just makin' a stand for you. It was wrong of me to stand there laughin' so I was just making it up."

Murdoc's bruised eye made him look like a shade of his brother, and she hated it. She had to leave.

"When you get in, rub some TCP on a cloth and dab it over them cuts. An' clean them. Tell ya brother to ring me or somethin', because we really do need to talk."

She left him standing there, fat mouth as agape as his pain threshold would allow. He felt a stab of sweetness and pushed it down, because he only liked sour boiled-sweets, never sugary ones.

He did, however, like her now. It only took that moment. No-one had ever 'made a stand' for him before, and he didn't quite understand her reasoning behind it, but somehow the idea of it washed away the dirt on his memory of her face. He liked her. It only took a moment. A blinding illumination. A ray of sunlight encircling her head...

Now he fucked it all up again, a good thing; his eyes screwed closed.

Face stinging all over, he crossed the road at the sound of the little girl walking back through her house. He found her messy, crudely drawn hopscotch in the coloured chalk and raked his foot downwards and over it, rainbow dust clouds floating into the air. He did it twice, grunting. The only things left of it after a while were violent, colourful scratches across the grey pavement.

* * *

**A/N: Once again, I apologise for the lateness of this update. Finally, my exams are over! :D Party time, people! That phrase meaning, for a geek like me: reading books, drinking coffee, and writing silly stories. xD**

**MUCH LOVE AND HUGS AND CUDDLES AND THAT to: SweetCherryCandy, Grimm2, cherry-magpie-x and Salekdarling. I seriously don't know where I'd be without you guys – you **_**are**_** my motivation for writing. Unfortunately it seems I can't reply to any of your reviews at the moment, I'm assuming because of site layout changes. Apparently all links are broken. But regardless, love and thanks to you all for your lovely words, encouragement and lulz. :D**

**Equal love for all of the favouriters and alerters – thank you for supporting and enjoying this little fic. It really does mean a lot.**

**Hope everyone enjoys this one – and please let me know what you think! ;) **


	8. Chapter Seven

Through one tiny lattice window with stale glass, the sun was shining. It was yellow and cold, as it nearly always was these days; he couldn't quite remember the last time he had actually attempted to enjoy the bright _ping_ _ping ping_ of it over exposed bits of his skin. When he did step outside it'd be low and dark like a burning matchstick, allowing the stink of the night to seep in. Frankly, he couldn't remember the last time he had been out of bed this early. Mindlessly, he had been wandering the house in his underwear and a pair of blackened socks, wiping mucus on the palm of his hand, for ten minutes. He felt fucking terrible.

He sighed and that hand through his hair, warm and smooth – it didn't matter now anyway. Problem was, he experienced little moments of profound insight into his own situation – little epiphanies – maybe once a week, but it never made any difference, because he always ran back. All he had left of his woman was the feminine curves of a whisky bottle and a white jumper hanging on the wardrobe door; realising that was all it ever took.

With a bastard of a headache like this, he decided nothing would ever make waking this early worthwhile, and so decided to never do it again. However, just this once, Jacob had reason for it. Today was his son's birthday, and he had remembered.

In one hand he held three ten pound notes, and in the other a little ragged, shrivelled blue envelope, ink running through the messy R and O scrawled upon it. He had made the mistake of hiding it in the cupboard beneath the kitchen sink – but it didn't matter now anyway. Gulping back a thick, slimy clot of phlegm, he knocked Murdoc's bedroom door.

Nothing happened.

He knocked again, a little more forcefully, and called, "Son?"

Nothing happened.

"Son?"

"Hello?"

Strangely, his voice sounded groggy, deeper. Jacob had noticed it upping a few pitches when directly addressing him, and he'd always thought him a pansy, and took pleasure in the slightly shaking _ring ring ring_ of it.

"I'm comin' in, alright?"

"Yeah."

He pushed down the door handle.

Murdoc was sat bolt upright in bed, thin, stained duvet pulled up around his stomach, leaving his feet to pop out, purplish with cold, at the end. He carefully brushed his dark hair out of his eyes and leaned back on his hands.

"What'sa matter with you?" He asked dryly. "Wrong room, Dad. Put some bloody clothes on."

"I came to say happy birthday."

The tight smirk fell from his face.

"Oh."

Jacob sauntered across the small room and held out the card and money. "I didn't know what to get ya, so I just gave ya the money, an' I got you a card n'all," he said hoarsely. Murdoc took the items, blinking furiously when unfolding the three notes, mouth dropping open. For the first time in a long while, Jacob noted that he looked very, very young, and all the more like his Mother. Surprise rarely glimmered over those dark, intent eyes with the long lashes.

Most of the time, he could hardly stand to look at the kid's face.

"Thirty quid?" Murdoc muttered. The most Hannibal had ever got for a birthday was a cheap record or a card and ten pounds, and remembering this he felt elated – albeit mingled with a twinge of guilt.

"Open y'card," his Dad said. Murdoc did so, crushing the money desperately in one hand. He pulled out a flimsy piece of white card, with a picture of a football, a red racing car, and a guitar on the front. In comic script above read simply _Happy 15th Birthday!_ It couldn't have cost much more than ninety-nine pence. The message inside was detached and generic as everything Dad did. A simple _To Murdoc_ written above the printed in message of _Have A Great Day! _and below it, a _From Dad_.

"Thanks," he said quietly. "Thanks for this, Dad."

"It's alright," Jacob nodded once, snorting and scratching the crook of his neck. "Spend it wisely, eh?"

And with that he ambled back out of the room and back into his own.

* * *

Predictably, Hannibal's birthday wishes were the icing on the perfect, non-existent cake. Murdoc was sat at the kitchen table when he came thundering down the stairs. He went straight to the fridge, pulled out a can of Heinz Beans, and hacked at the lid with a butter knife until it cracked open metallically. He then scooped out the contents with a fork and his fingers, slopping the sauce down the collar of his t-shirt.

"Oi, Murdoc."

Murdoc glanced at him and turned back to the TV, caressing the papery fold of one note in his left pocket. Hannibal stood there eating noisily, leaning against the sink, watching him.

"What?" He demanded.

"It's y'birthday today, ain't it?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, right," Hannibal said, and then began walking back towards the staircase. As he passed by, he offered him an ironically wide, happy grin. "Happy birthday. Twat."

"Yeah, go fuck yerself."

He decided that he would not tell Hannibal about Pris' visit: because, firstly, his birthday probably wouldn't excuse him a slap like it usually did in these sorts of situations, and secondly, he had strangely grown fond of their separation.

During the week in which Pris had cut all ties with him, he had spoken to Murdoc a lot more – some of it had actually been decent conversation, made jokes and laughed together, even _agreed_ on most things said about the likes of Thatcher, and ABBA. They shared a similarity, and finally an understanding: something that Murdoc _craved_ from someone – particularly his brother – all of his life.

He couldn't give him back to her, not now he held him so tantalisingly close.

Murdoc watched him walking back up the stairs, the lean, flat muscles in his back relaxing and tensing rhythmically, his knees shifting apart.

* * *

The day saw him go into the town centre, hoping to buy booze or cigarettes or gig tickets, something nice and impressive. However, at every opportunity, he simply couldn't bring himself to hand over the money. Why, he had no idea, though he did reason that it was the largest amount of money he had ever held in his hand. He finished up sat on a wooden bench in the park, holding the notes in his hand and rubbing them affectionately between his fingers, as the skeleton-trees laden with green leaves sighed.

He would go home, put this money in a box or a bag, somewhere secret, and just keep it there; maybe take it out once a day, look at it, and then put it away again. He couldn't fathom why this was necessary, but he would do it anyway, because it felt right. He walked back home with his pockets pleasantly full.

The day had warmed up, sending the scent of sweet summer flowers and clogged drains and barbeques to thicken the air. He enjoyed it coolly, a smile cracking his sickly face. No doubt today had been nothing, and could be nothing, but a good day. He turned on to Amos Lane and kicked a pebble along the way. Guilt shocked him when he saw the colourful scars over the opposite side of the pavement. He pushed it down. He pushed the door out. His smile faded.

" –and be _ashamed_ of y'self!"

It was Hannibal shouting, but it was barely recognisable. His voice sounded very high pitched, and wheezing, as if he was being choked. It was frighteningly loud; Murdoc flinched as he closed the door behind him, as quietly as possible.

"_Bastard_! You fuckin' old greasy _bastard_!"

Was he talking to Dad?

Despite the generous gift, Murdoc would never be in the mood for defending his Father, and especially not against the wrath of Hannibal. However, he did want to know what all the fuss was about. Hannibal had never sounded weaker, louder, or more murderous, and the combination absolutely petrified him.

"The last thing! You fuckin' slimy wanker! I should kick your head in, I swear!"

It was coming from upstairs. Delicately Murdoc took three steps forward and stood at the bottom, one hand clasping the stair-rail so tightly it left a red groove in his palm. Something heavy hit against the floor. The hanging light in the hallway swayed dangerously.

Murdoc swallowed the taste of soldered metal in his mouth and rushed his way up the stairs. Hannibal's shadow was on the wall of Dad's bedroom, stretched, contorted, monstrous. He was standing at the foot of the bed, leaning forward, hands gripping the wooden headboard. His body was expanding and shrinking with hurried, choking breath. The lamp was on the floor.

"That was all I had _left_."

"Calm down," Dad was muttering. Murdoc couldn't see him behind the broad strength of Hannibal's shoulders.

"Calm down? Calm-fucking-down?" Hannibal screamed, his shaven head shimmering with sweat. He picked up one of Dad's boots on the floor and hurled it at the wall with a yowl, just missing the top of his head. It thudded darkly, and the whole room rattled. It was the largest room of all, with the same white net curtains and coffee-brown duvet on the double-bed. Dad was apparently curled upon it.

"Is that _all_ you said to Mom?"

"_Shut_–"

"_No_!" Hannibal yelled, and something in his voice broke at the strained pitch. "You're a useless old drunken fucking dick, old man!"

"It was just a –"

Murdoc, who had plastered himself against the wall, gasped as Hannibal leapt upon their Father. After he heard his Father yelp, Murdoc charged in, panting in equal time with his brother.

"Hans, _what_ are you doing?"

Hannibal's head whipped around so quickly Murdoc heard a rigid bone snap. His eyes were streaming redly, and a large slick of snot glistened beneath his nose. He was crying, Murdoc realised, and he choked back a horrified, guttural sound. Hannibal snarled, revealing one cat-like canine to shine out of the gloom; his face was coloured puce.

Strangely, he didn't move. His hand was still hovering in the air above Dad's face when he spoke, and his voice was changed, unnervingly childlike.

"How much money have you got?"

"Nothin'!" Murdoc lied.

"Thirty quid," Hannibal answered. "No need to lie. You see, Dad's already told me what went on."

Murdoc's nerve endings felt unnaturally alive. He was shivering.

"What?"

"He sold Mum's pearl necklace," his brother replied, matter-of-fact. "For thirty quid. Y'know how much it was worth?"

"No," Murdoc whispered. Hannibal kept the necklace in an old biscuit tin in his room, the bottom covered in a layer of cheap imitation red silk. It was the only thing of Mum's they had. Hannibal had locked him in the airing cupboard once, when he was younger, for looking at it. Something told him it wasn't so much the monetary value that was important.

"It was worth about a fiver. Brilliant fuckin' cheat and liar, our Dad!" A disturbing sort of half-smile came to Hannibal's face, and he chuckled.

"Yeah," Murdoc agreed.

"And it's _your_ fault!" Hannibal growled, his voice suddenly loud again. Murdoc jumped.

"How _can_ it be?"

"He did it for your fuckin' birthday! _You_! It's all _you_!"

His head was thrown back against the wall before he could even protest. Hannibal spoke directly to his face, spat on it as he did so. Murdoc felt nauseous. Those gunmetal eyes were pouring tears and hunger and he thought he was going to gut him like a fat old sow.

"You, all you! It's your fault!"

He was speaking faster and faster, Murdoc could hardly make out the words.

"It's your fault he sold the necklace! Your fault she's gone! If she hadn't _grown_ you in her fuckin' _belly_! You made her try to fuckin' _top_ herself! You're fuckin' _poison_!"

"I didn't do anything!"

"She knew she was pregnant with _you_, and she wanted to _die_, you piece of shit," Hannibal garbled. He looked him in the eyes, pushed his forehead against his, and shouted, "I _hate_ you!"

Murdoc hit out blindly, and he missed, but Hannibal did not.

* * *

**A/N: Nothing like a bit of early afternoon violence in the house of Niccals, hmm? :D**

**I do, firstly, apologise about the amount of language and violence in this chapter. But this, for me, is Hannibal's chapter – we see what he's really about. It has to be full of violence and language, haha! ;)**

**This chapter is also a nod to my one-shot, **_**Shoebox**_**. Please check it out if you've been enjoying this fic, I'm sure you'll like that one too. :)**

**Speaking of one-shots, I've also wondered whether I should begin writing them again... Anyone for pervy!murdoc... or a little Paula/2-D? ;P please let me know!**

**I'd like to give my thanks, love, hugs and all manner of mushy/appreciative gestures/objects to: SweetCherryCandy, bonexylophone, (anonymousreviwer), Bella, Salekdarling, and cherry-magpie-x. Your reviews mean the world!**

**And of course, all new favouriteres and alerters! It's so lovely to know you're all enjoying this fic, so thank you very very much. **

**That's it from me, anyway! Finally, something sensical in this fic! xD**

**Not too long for updates, hopefully! :) Please let me know what you think! **


	9. Chapter Eight

There were ghosts in Hannibal's eyes.

Or tears, Murdoc couldn't tell. Hannibal blinked into his face, once, twice, and then vaulted back to his feet. His knuckles looked dark and shiny and Murdoc cringed at the thought of more blood. He couldn't see properly. His entire body was aching and throbbing, the sensation of near-orgasm – but bursting with pain. It didn't seem too bad. He let his head rest against the wall and heaved at the obscure, swimming world before him; he looked and felt fresh from the womb.

It wasn't too hard a punch but it was enough to change his eyes to up-turned, watery marbles. One hand jittered across it, and the other his stomach from the kick to the groin and ribs. It hadn't been hitting, for the most part, just shouting, which was odd, because Hannibal never usually made any noise when did things like this. This time it had been heated, passionate, vocal, animal – and Murdoc was weirdly in awe. Hannibal stared at him, and then Dad, still lying on the bed.

"You know it as well as I do," Hans whispered, rubbing his wet knuckles on the duvet before walking out, mumbling.

Murdoc groaned, and the next thing he felt was the sharp, healing slap of a damp cloth over his eye, and Dad's nasty acid breath on his face.

* * *

Hannibal left the house and walked to nowhere. Hannibal remembered.

_Hannibal hated the smell of hospitals, and the smell of the nightgown they'd dressed his Mother in. It was clinical, plastic; powdery like old people and pungent as baby sick. She lay there in that hospital bed; wires attached to the smooth white dome of her belly; stretch marks crawling over her skin like spider legs. There were odd, splintered, purple red blots across it too. She was fat and sickly, her mouth was dripping clear fluid and her face was shiny, sweaty. Long light brown hair was stuck damply to her forehead. Her tiny legs were spilt open over the mattress, weighed down by the huge expanse of round tummy._

"_Jake," she hissed, "Ah, God."_

_Stood in the doorway, Hannibal went running over to her, dropping the plastic blue toy car in his hand onto the white tiled floor. "Mum!"_

_She held out her strange crinkled hands to him, palms up, inviting. He grasped them desperately, and she returned the pressure of his fingers. She felt like a cold, dead slug. She gazed up drunkenly at his Father, shivering. Hannibal was frightened for a fraction of a second. Her usually pretty eyes were all wet and red, burning up at him with a terrified, frantic sort of intensity._

"_Jake, wait."_

_Hannibal felt the air shift behind him, and then Dad was gone._

_Mum squeezed his hand painfully and dragged him closer. Hannibal rested his head against her chest, inhaled her disgusting scents, and wriggled._

"_Ah, God," she wailed, and then snatched up a handful of Hannibal's _Thomas the Tank_ t-shirt and pulled him off her. Hannibal stumbled backwards, but hurried back and patted her hand gently. "I just don't want it, I hate it," she told him, and slurped back mucus and tears, staring into his eyes seriously. "I fucking hate it, baby," she rubbed one hand across her stomach and glared at it helplessly, tears falling down her face. "I just _hate_ it. I want it to die. I don't want it, I _hate_ it. I just want to die."_

"_It's alright, Mum," Hannibal said calmly. "It might still go away."_

"_It won't, though. I can't make it, no matter _what_ I do." She slapped the bulge of her belly, and her whole body jiggled fatly. She moaned. "I can't even look after _you_! Ah, God!"_

_Hannibal swallowed back his tears. "Maybe you just need a sleep, Mum."_

_She spoke in a trembling voice and stared at her tummy, rubbing it, pinching it, hard, hatefully, powerlessly. "I mean, I can _feel_ it. I can feel it eating me. Eating me up, all day, all night, and I can't take it! I fucking hate all of it! I just can't take it anymore! Ah, _God_!" _

_She thumped her stomach again, yowling, and a screaming nurse came rushing in._

"_No!"_

_Hannibal jumped back, and watched in blinding fear as his Mother continued to scratch at her abdomen, pinch and smack and claw. _There's a little heart in there_, Hannibal thought. As the nurse ran in she trod on his toy car and the plastic blue bonnet cracked down the centre. She almost fell over. She grabbed his Mother's mad, quavering hands, and then another nurse came in a grabbed his, took him away._

_A few minutes later they were talking to his Dad in a little room. A nurse had given him a plastic cup of orange juice and sat him on a plastic chair outside, his face streaked by the bright light cut through the blinds. _

"_- and so we think it best if she stays, for a rest, at least."_

"_But it's just a bad bloody case o'the baby blues. She'll be right as rain in the mornin', you see if –"_

"_Mr. Niccals, your wife has been burning her stomach with cigarettes and self-harming for longer than two months now," said the doctor, "and chased a bottle of aspirin with a bottle of vodka this evening, with the intention of killing herself, and your unborn child. She is causing potential, and deliberate, harm to herself, and to others. I'm afraid I simply cannot discharge her from our care. Not for a while. I am sorry."_

"_What'cha mean, 'a while'?"_

"_This is a severe case of pre-natal depression, Mr. Niccals. Recovery will be a very lengthy, painful process for your wife, and yourselves."_

"_She ain't my wife," said Dad. _

_Hannibal ended up slumped, asleep, in the chair after that. When he woke in the morning she was gone. They took her away. He never saw her again._

_But Hannibal remembered. _

* * *

Murdoc left the house, but he did not walk to nowhere.

He left Dad in bed, sheets thrown awkwardly over him, a cup of coffee and two paracetamol capsules on the bedside table. After dabbing an icy, wet cloth over his wounds and offering him a little glass of gin, he had stalked straight up to bed without another word, despite Murdoc's pain-slurred protests through his slack tongue and cloudy little brain.

He felt lonely, and he was hurting all over, and he didn't understand, and so for some reason that led him here.

Pris' house was similar to their own, but the brick was a beige colour, and the windows were clean. The garden was bigger, too, greener, alive with white and pink and orange flowers that he didn't know the names of.

He wasn't entirely sure that this was the right house – had Hannibal said number fifteen, or fifty? It didn't matter. Fifty seemed to be his safest bet. He turned out the little iron gate, which didn't creak and groan as theirs did, and then followed the creamy stone slabs to the front door.

He snapped the knocker back against its brass lion's head twice, impatiently. It opened soon enough. A boy answered the door, slightly smaller than himself, with longish brown hair and the same pussycat face as Pris'. His eyes were not her opaque, devastating blue: instead they were a shiny, bird black. His mouth wasn't thick or pink, either. It was thinner, meeker – his lips were not cruel like hers. Definitely the right house.

"Is Pris in?" Murdoc asked quickly, suddenly embarrassed. This had been a completely fucking mad thing to even consider doing.

"Who're you?"

His voice was distinctly soft, but unpleasant, like Norman Bates; far too seductive and strange for a kid his age. He couldn't have been much older than thirteen. Murdoc frowned at him.

"Oh, 'mm Murdoc."

"Wull, she's upstairs," said the boy in his weird soft voice. "So, I suppose ya can come in 'n wait, if y'want."

"I do," Murdoc insisted. "Thanks."

The boy stepped aside and invited him inside with long slimy fingers, nails bitten down to the quick. He stepped into a sitting room that smelt like mothballs and toast. It was far too full for such a tiny room. The wallpaper was busily floral, coloured red, pink and teal, and then covered in hanging picture frames. They were all reddish wood, and large. The fireplace was the same wood, engraved with more flowers, and atop it sat more picture frames and a brass clock. Aside from that there were four fabric sofas, a TV, and two little vases on stands in the corners of the room. It hurt his head to look at it; it was like a 50's aristocrat's place.

"'Av a seat," said the boy. Murdoc sat in one red fabric sofa and looked about as the boy walked away through a door, to what seemed to be the kitchen.

The picture frames displayed photographs of the family; in them were immortal figures and faces of people he didn't know.

In the centre of the fireplace was a school photograph of the boy. In this, his hair had been gelled oddly to the sides of his head, while tufts of it stuck out at the crown and front like ruffled chicken feathers. He was wearing a green school jumper and smiling oddly as the camera light reflected in his bird-like eyes.

Other pictures displayed a pallid, slender woman with in her hair in bright yellow pin-curls, her face only just pinched by a smile. She was skinny and severe looking, like Pris, but her mouth and eyes were all wrong. She stood in the centre of what appeared to be a pub, the boy and a blonde girl either side of her, giggling. She was Pris' Mother.

Next to this was another picture. This person, he knew. Stood before a fence, dry soil, dry grass and dry roses, hands clasped behind her back, was a tiny Pris. She grinned dreadfully at the camera, teeth flashing over the right side of her face, her head slightly bowed. Her hair was flaxy pale gold, the kind that'd obviously darken within a few years, sticky-out and thick, cut just to her shoulders. Her orange and white polka-dot dress was blowing about and hadn't covered her left knee, tied in a bloody gauze. She was barely recognisable, such a girl, with her long hair and her slightly turned-in feet in their buckled white shoes. The only sign of the person he knew was that smile, and two glistening blue eyes, wet in the sunlight. That was the only picture of her alone.

"Alright?"

Murdoc's head whipped around so fast his neck made a weird, crumbling crack. Staring at him was a woman, slightly chubby, make-up layered thickly over her face. Powder was melting in the cracks by her eyes, which she had covered with more powder. Her lips were gaudy red. Her hair was short, bright, synthetic yellow. She had dark eyes and a tiny, thin, cigarette-shrivelled mouth.

"Yeah, thanks," said Murdoc.

"So, you're waitin' for Priscilla?" She had a very tart, husky sort of voice, as if she needed to cough heavily for sucking too long on a cigarette. Still, she wore tight, short clothing. A skimpy red tank-top and a denim skirt. She had grown old since that photograph, but she was still unmistakeably that woman; Pris' Mother.

"Yeah, I am."

"Right, I don't reckon she'll be long."

"Good."

Murdoc managed an artificial smile, and then looked at his knees.

"You don't look too good, what 'appened to ya?"

"Fight at school," he half-lied, entwining his fingers.

"I see. I've gotta ask it, don't I know you from somewhere?"

He swallowed thickly and looked up at her. He frowned. "No, you don't."

She looked suspicious, and frowned straight back at him, puckering her lips and shaking her head. Waggling a beefy finger at him, she contended, "No, I do. I know you."

"I'm sorry, but y'don't."

"No, no! I know you! Dave, c'mere, babe!"

Dave walked into the sitting room after a few seconds. He had a beer-gut and a reddened, strong-looking face. He wore a chequered shirt with three buttons open, revealing a mass of curly brown hair, like a cross-breed dog.

"Look who it is!"

Dave's eyes widened and he grinned at him, patronisingly, if slightly affectionate. "Oh, well, lookit you, all grown up, eh?"

"I dunno what you're all on about," Murdoc protested. Pris' Mother cackled at him.

"Ah, you know? You used to enter the talent shows at the pub, duck! Every week, you remember? Mighty good set of lungs on ya, I'll give you that. You used to do that Disney number."

She shrieked with laughter again, and Murdoc felt blood rush to his face and beat heavily on either side of his neck, a separate pulse, almost. This couldn't be happening.

"_Hi-Ho, the Merri-o! That's the only way to go!_" She sang, clapping her hands dully, lolling her head back to laugh again.

"Yeah, from Pinocchio?" Dave nodded enthusiastically. "_I've got no strings, to hold me down! _You wore a little yellow hat and those red shorts, blue braces! Very good costume, mate. Ooh, what a hoot!"

When they had finally sobered, Dave stuck his hand into Murdoc's face.

"Oh, dear God. What a hoot! Great to see ya again, kid. I'm sure you'll go far."

"Oh, yeah. Good luck, sweetheart."

Murdoc took it and dug his nails in as hard as possible; fucking wanker. Pris was right. Even her fat old coot of a Mother could do better. He wanted to break every bone in that hand. At least leave a mark. Apparently, he had. They left to go and sit in the garden. Murdoc remained alone for a while in their sitting room, refusing their offer to join them. He was happy chewing his anger.

The boy had been listening from the top of the stairs. He walked down them carefully. Murdoc noticed his feet were greyish and flaky.

"I don't think she'll be coming down here any time soon, actually," he said strangely, and then sat down opposite him. He smiled. "I'm Billy, by the way. They call me Billy-Boy 'cause I'm young. I'm twelve."

"Why won't she be here?" Murdoc snapped.

"She's got a boy up there, obviously."

Murdoc's stomach dropped.

"_Who_?" He demanded, his hands and eyes on fire with hate and fear.

Billy-Boy shrugged and smiled again in that weird, seductive manner. Murdoc recoiled. He picked off a flake of dead skin and dropped it onto his tongue. He said, "You're welcome to stay, its fine. Me and you could sit and talk, while my big sister and your big brother fuck each other."

He froze.

"And hey, man, I got strawberry laces. We can share 'em."

He couldn't speak; he felt the obscure release of tears in his eyes.

"I like classical music. I'm learning to play the clarinet. You want a lace?"

He shot up so fast Billy-Boy flinched. There was a packet of cigarettes on the table, and he took them – four Camel Filters.

"Those are Pris'! She'll be –"

"I don't care anymore."

He yanked the packet of strawberry laces from his grip and then thudded his way to the door, slamming it behind him.

* * *

**A/N: **

**Aah, the plot unfolds. ;)**

**Firstly, just to clear things up for all people who didn't understand Murdoc/Pris' Mother/Dave's little discussion, in Rise Of The Ogre Murdoc tells the story of his Father forcing him to enter talent contests for drinking money. Murdoc once sang Pinocchio's "I've Got No Strings". :) Also, Billy-Boy was a guitarist in one of Murdoc's early metal bands.**

**Secondly, thank you as always to every single one of my favouriters and alerters, but mostly, my reviewers: SweetCherryCandy, Salekdarling, MaffyUndead, xPenguinxDreamsx, Bella, and – of course, and despite her absence – Sara, the gorgeous cherry-magpie-x. Your support and enjoyment means the world to me, thank you forever, snuggles for all! :D**

**I hope you all enjoy this chapter. Please let me know what you think! :D**


	10. Chapter Nine

**A/N: Due to the content of this chapter, I've had to up the rating of this fic to **_**M**_**. I really do apologise to anyone who finds this offensive, or doesn't want to continue reading (which would be just **_**awful**_**). This has been written for a reason, but if you find 'sexual' situations (the first ever 'sex' scene written in my life, aaah) offensive, etc., please just skip right on down to the second section, or don't read at all. Thank you all, enjoy! :) **

* * *

Her skin was just as he had imagined. Lukewarm and tender to the touch, pure white, labyrinths of purple veins on her wrists, her neck, her legs. He ran his finger leisurely over the concave stomach, across the bumps of her ribs, the bony valley between her breasts. She sighed, arched her hips. He was kneeling over her, drinking her in.

She was slick, pink, wet and swollen for him.

"Aah – _sweet_," he sang dreamily, elongating the vowels.

"Come on," she trembled, fingers grasping handfuls of air. Her mouth stayed open, her eyes stayed closed.

He smirked and leaned forward on his hands, placing them either side of her head so that his body floated, huge and heavy, over hers; which felt odd. She opened her eyes. They were the same pale blue, curiously wide and shiny in the half-darkness.

"Just do it," she said breathlessly, her lips dark, sensuous red and damp. She slapped his shoulder weakly, and he grinned. In a single motion he dipped his head and nuzzled the hot white column of her neck, dewy with sweat. He laved his tongue up and down it, then in a small circle, pulling a high-pitched moan from her. He kissed the soft patch of skin before her ear.

"Do what?" He whispered lowly, purring and rubbing his cheek against hers. She slapped his shoulder again, harder this time. Her muscles were bunching and releasing all over her body. _Oh, God_, he thought, clenching his teeth against the need to feel all of that flesh against his. He was straining and burning, his length almost brushing one rail-thin thigh. _Oh, God_.

"Now, Murdoc!" She gasped.

"Aah, you – ooh, _sweet_," he moaned desperately, his back muscles tensing, glossed over with sweat, prickling.

His fingers trailed over her stomach once again, and then up to her small, almost-flat breast. She had lovely ochre coloured nipples with deep pink centres. He circled it, pinched it, circled it, rolled it. She grunted. "What do I need ta say?" She pleaded.

"You know what I want you to say," he chuckled, and then, deliberately sliding his whole body over hers, he moved down to lick and suck the other pink nipple. She groaned, and he smiled against her supple white skin. "Aah – _sweet_," he cooed.

"Just touch me, for God's sake!"

"Wrong answer, Pris," he hissed, "say please."

His hand slipped down to her hips once more; and then he noticed it.

"Oh, _Jesus, _just – just –_ yeah_," she growled.

He stopped completely, staring down at his hand, fanned out on her hip. It was too big, too wide. The nails were too long.

"Murdoc, what is it?"

The index finger had a clear, S-shaped scar by the knuckle. Like Hannibal's hand, almost –

Murdoc yelped and woke with a jolt, narrowly avoiding biting his tongue. His stomach was sticky. He hurried into the bathroom and was thankful to be blinded by the sudden light in the dark. His face had gone waxy and it flashed over the mirror. The bruise was worse. Outside, he saw, day was dawning; it was about six o'clock by the periwinkle colour of the sky. He rolled off some tissue and cleaned up quickly, shakily, grimacing. What was _that_ all about?

_While my big sister and your big brother fuck each other_.

He sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face – not before checking for an S-shaped scar. He didn't have one. No-one did, apart from Hannibal. He frowned at his reflection and looked deep into his own eyes. This was potentially the most fucked-up thought to ever enter his head.

He felt sick.

After splashing cold water over his face twice he went back into his room, changed into his uniform, and sat in the dark, eyes closed, until he would have to leave and return to school. It was just a dream – and though the content was far less depraved than most things surfacing from his subconscious, the idea was the worst.

Things would be fine as soon as he could be around other people, he decided. He was glad to be back in school, caught in its clutter.

But it made no difference. The image of a sweaty, naked Pris was on his mind all day.

* * *

"Pris?"

Pris poured herself a bowl of cornflakes and glugged an excessive amount of milk over them, scowling. Her hair was still mussed, wet and dark after her shower, and she was naked all but an over-large t-shirt thrown on, back-to-front. It listed tour-dates down her front, and on her back displayed The Upsetters' logo. Billy thought she looked like a little Lego woman, with the head screwed on the wrong way.

Billy said, "Have we still got my Lego?"

Pris said, "No."

Billy said, "Once I made a Lego house out of only red bricks. I like red."

Pris didn't say anything. Billy spoke to the back of her head, smiling.

Billy said, "And we had a police officer figure, and I drowned him in the toilet –"

Pris said, "Do you want any cereal?"

And Billy said, "No, thank you."

And Pris said, "O.K., what d'ya want, then?"

And Billy said, "Nothing."

And Pris said, "Well, y'have to eat somethin'."

And Billy said, "I could have had strawberry laces, but 'mm Murdoc took them away."

Pris turned around quickly and stood, staring, chewing on her soggy cornflake mush. "Did you just say _Murdoc_?"

"Yeah," Billy deadpanned. She blinked at him in disbelief. He tapped his fingers on the tabletop, glanced at them, and then gnawed the raw, broken skin hungrily. "He came looking for you."

"_When_?" She exclaimed, her pale blue eyes growing enormous. She slammed her bowl down on the counter-top and snapped, "Billy-Boy!"

"Billy-Goats Gruff, I'll gobble you up!" Billy grinned oddly, and then his hand skittered down to his bare feet and picked off a sliver of dead skin. He ate it. "I don't know, Pris," he replied softly. "It was last night. He looked like a Panda-Bear."

"What, y'mean he was bruised?"

"Yes."

"Fucking hell," Pris whispered. "Hannibal – he lied ta me."

"Naughty," Billy said faintly.

"Exactly," she nodded, and her jaw tightened reflexively with anger. "Where's my frickin' skirt?"

* * *

She had done her very best to forget her school days; the endless afternoons in the hall beneath the glass, praying, jangling rosaries, muttering her way through hymns; the Bibles and the textbooks; the workbooks; the empty pages.

Pris had never cared too much about school, or exam grades. It didn't matter. And even if it did, it didn't, because she hadn't even a fraction of a chance of passing them.

At the time she was sitting her exams she had met Hannibal Niccals. He had been just over two years older, _nineteen_, out of school, frightening and mysterious and flirtatious. He kissed her one night and bit her lower lip roughly. She had liked it. She had liked him, more than anything else; he was far more interesting, far more _alluring_ than schoolwork and libraries and essays and the bullshit in her Bible.

Nothing else seemed to hold any significance.

Standing outside of the black school gates was horribly familiar. She leaned against one brick pillar, yanking the sleeves of her shirt over her elbows, and stared into the windows. The school was an ancient looking, grey, moss-eaten building, adorned with long windows and vivid green hedges and crucifixes. It seemed tired, throbbing with a toothache. She hated it.

The time read two minutes to three o'clock. Soon enough the students would be allowed to leave. She counted down. The bell rang in one-hundred-and-twelve seconds.

Murdoc was nowhere to be seen for quite a while, but in the crowd, she realised, he would not easily be recognised. Too many of them had long black hair, loose ties, pale faces –

"Oi!" she demanded, and tugged the shoulder of any faceless teenage boy. He looked about Murdoc's age, green eyes, weird haircut. She wrenched him closer to her and forced him to turn around, a handful of his blazer gripped tight between her fingers. "You know a kid called Murdoc Niccals?" She barked.

"I know him – yeah – look, will you just get off –"

"Where _is_ he?"

"I don't know! How should _I_ know?"

"Oh, alright, whatever," Pris shrugged, and pushed him backwards. He went toppling into the swarming mass of people leaving the school, cursing her. "Posh little cock."

He fell into someone with black hair, who went to shove him back. It was Murdoc.

"Murdoc!" She yowled, "Come 'ere!"

His head cracked up at the sound of her voice, and he stared at her, wide-eyed, shocked, and apparently very, very nervous. Both of his eyes were bruised. One was flat and yellowed, the other raised and an alarmingly dark shade of violet. He had a cut across his cheek, too, healing black and toffee-apple-red. "What the fuck?" he mumbled.

"Come 'ere, man!" Pris called.

He nodded, and proceeded to jostle his way through the crowd. A few steps away from her, he paused. His eyes danced across hers cautiously, and then he bowed his head and stared at his feet in their scuffed black shoes.

"What're you doing here?" he asked. He didn't look into her eyes, still.

"Shall we get away from here first? I bloody hate this place," Pris suggested, but she didn't wait for his approval or acceptance. She turned abruptly and sauntered away from the school gate. The backs of her legs were snowy white, pretty and handsomely curved, strong, full of the tiny blue rivers of her veins. Her Doc Marten's were cherry red and clocked over the pavement. She turned back, grinning jaggedly, and then jumped up onto the grass verge on the other side of the road.

And as he would nearly always be compelled to do from now on, Murdoc followed her.

* * *

When they turned the corner into a street Murdoc didn't know, Pris stopped and turned to him. She had been walking slightly ahead, her large hands swinging at her sides, the tough fingers flowing and winding the air around them. She began walking backwards, just glancing over her shoulder to check her footing, the cords in her throat standing out. There was a bus stop and shelter just down the street, and he realised they were headed for it.

"Alright," she said, "before I start, will you promise you'll listen?"

"Depends if it's worth listening to," he replied.

"If I said it was?"

"Then I'd give ya five minutes, yeah."

"O.K.."

They had reached the bus shelter. Saying nothing, Pris slid down onto the plastic bench, and he leaned against the frame, arms and ankles crossed. She rubbed her hands over her knees, pulling her shoulders up, and then looked up at him, squinting against the sting of the sun.

"Billy-Boy told me you came to my house last night," she stated.

"It was a bad idea," Murdoc shrugged dismissively, pressing his lips together and looking out at the empty road.

"Hannibal did, too," she continued, "he told me you'd had a row."

Murdoc chuckled, squeezing the bridge of his nose, shaking his head.

"Oh, not really. You see, I thought a row was two people gettin' aggressive over a disagreement – we didn't _disagree_ about anything, because I had no idea what was fuckin' goin' on."

There was a little pause.

She sighed, "He didn't tell me that."

"What did he tell ya, then?" Murdoc insisted, grinding his teeth, wincing as they snapped unevenly in his mouth.

"He told me you sold your Mum's old necklace to get money to buy booze for your birthday, and then he said you'd tried to smack him up, but he didn't take the bait, and he went to see me. And –"

"Bullshit!" He snarled.

"Obviously," Pris nodded, and then gestured towards his newly weeping, bloodied eye. "I didn't think it sounded quite right when 'e told me. He can't seem to stop himself, when someone gives him a reason ta give 'em a thump."

Murdoc glowered at her, "I _didn't_ sell her necklace."

"Ya don't need to lie. It just means a lot to him, I thought you'd have known. He dreams about your Mum a lot, she –"

"_No_," Murdoc bit at her, "I didn't sell her necklace! Our Dad did, for my birthday present."

She stared at him warily for a moment, and then closed her eyes lightly and exhaled. Darkly, he was reminded of last night. "Oh, fucking no," she whispered.

Satisfied, Murdoc rested his head against the frame of the bus shelter, and gazed at the swaying, tried, brightly-coloured trees and shrubs in the distance, round and clipped neatly.

"I'm sorry, Murdoc."

She didn't say it to his face, but her voice was hushed, temperate, and he somehow felt that she meant it.

Yet, somehow, it wasn't enough. He wanted more, wanted to feel it again. Why, he didn't know. He still didn't like her, not _too_ much: but feeling this sort of genuine concern from anyone was highly comforting – and electrifying.

"He shouldn't throw his fists around like that. Your bloody _face_ –"

"My chest, my arms, my back," he interjected. Her eyes widened, and she paused lengthily.

After a few seconds, she muttered, "He's gone fuckin' mad."

"Like you said, it meant a lot to him," he responded. "It doesn't matter, I'm alright."

"Hmm," she agreed. "Still, I just wanted to check you were alright." She stood then. Her tits jiggled gently, and then he realised she wasn't wearing a bra. He swallowed, tilted his chin upwards, and scowled back at her pale eyes, or her cheeks, something – anything to avoid that vicious, deep pink mouth. "And, to ask you," she continued, linking her fingers behind her back, "Why you came to me."

"Like I said, it was a bad idea," he hissed.

"What gave you the idea in the first place?" She stepped closer, strange, misty blue colours in her eyes.

"I was going to request you snap his dick off for me," he leered.

"Oh, I'm not _that_ cruel," she grinned, her eyes sparkling. Another step closer. They were almost touching. _Yes, yes you are, _Murdoc thought, worried, exhilarated, _you're a fucking ballbreaker. _

"I beg to differ," he managed.

"Is it really so hard to give me a straight answer?" Pris pushed, and took another step. Their arms brushed. She leaned against the frame too, her teeth and eyes glinting.

"You were nice to me, last time. 'S not easy. I just – well, I thought maybe –"

"I know," she smiled dangerously. He thought of her face and body, the white length and curves of it, and he found a lump in his throat. Her fingers danced up to his shoulder. "I know what you thought."

"What are you doing?" he bleated.

"I'm being _nice_, Murdoc," she answered, chuckling. "Now, let me make up for it."

"It's not your fault," he shook his head.

"I meant about missing you last night."

"Oh," he said, and then frowned and laughed groggily, bowing his head. "But, what about Han –"

"I don't know where he is, and I don't give a shit," she interrupted suddenly, still grinning wildly. "He lied to me and he punched you in the face, baby-love. No-one fuckin' lies to _me_ like that. Who cares?"

"Don't you think –"

"We could get a can of Cola, some chocolate, go to the park?" she proposed, her smile widening. She stuck her nose in the air and simpered, in a dramatically feminine, posh sort of voice, "Go for an afternoon stroll, sir?"

Murdoc smirked, "You're frickin' stupid."

"Oh just shut the fuck up, you twat," she huffed, and flicked his nose. He flinched, and she rolled her eyes and snickered at him, before walking away quickly, laughing to herself.

"Well _that_ wasn't nice," he called when she was a little way down the road.

"I'm not a nice girl," she snorted.

Murdoc watched her. She was laughing again. He smiled.

"_I_ think you're nice," he said quietly.

* * *

**A/N: Well, there you have it. :) This chapter has been a lot of fun to write, a bit experimental, with lemon, and then writing from the P.O.V. of a derranged twelve-year-old... xD I hope everyone liked!**

**A huge hug, kiss, thank you and a selection of puddings to: SweetCherryCandy, PandaLove01, G0rillaz, cherry-magpie-x, and cupopener900 - your reviews and enjoyment is really the highest praise. :D**

**And of course, a big thank you to all my new favouriters and alerters - it's lovely to know you're enjoying my little fic! **

**Please let me know what you think, updates will be soonish! :)**


	11. Chapter Ten

"Pris?"

A little smile pulled the corner of her mouth when he said her name. They were lying on the huge expanse of grass by the park: it feathery to the touch, frail and meekly green beneath them; full of weeds, bobbing dandelions and daises. They had lapsed into silence a while ago, the comfortable sort that grows after laughter. She lay next to him, on her side, propped up on her right elbow. Resting on the ground her long, thick, muscled fingers twiddled with two daises.

"What?" she responded, staring at her hands. He was sat, legs crossed, leaning forward on his knees and chugging Cola from the can.

"Are ya happy with him?"

A frown puckered her forehead. She swallowed awkwardly, searching for an answer, and then decided to babble to avoid the answer. Why she wanted to avoid it she did not know, but there was some hidden, bruising significance behind that question, and she knew it. She laughed quietly, mashing the daisy stems together. She muttered, "I never could make daisy chains, even when I was little. All the other girls could."

Murdoc blinked at her.

"They made little tiaras and bracelets and that. I couldn't do it. I've always had fuckin' massive fingers." She continued to fiddle with the flowers. "See, y'have to tie these tiny, _tiny_ little knots in 'em. They tried to teach me. It didn't work."

"What are you on about?" He chortled.

She shrugged, grinning to herself, thankful for the laughter. "Oh, God, I dunno."

"Answer my question, then," Murdoc demanded. Pris glanced up at him scathingly.

"Wotchit, ya stinkfish," she warned.

He smiled at her pleadingly – she supposed attempting to seem innocent, adorable – but, even for a boy with exceptionally long lashes, he'd never look sweet. "Please?"

Pris shook her head at him. "Alright then, yeah, I'm happy."

"Really?"

"Why do you even care?"

"Why do _you_?" He shot back, raising an eyebrow.

"Don't flatter yourself," she scoffed. "I only brought you that Cola to make up for missing ya."

"Right," Murdoc purred, nodding to himself. He looked up at the sky, his skin blanched in the heavenly light of the sun and the pure blue hue from the sky. "But then, surely, that'd mean you still do care, seeing as y'want to make me feel better."

"It doesn't matter," she said suddenly, and stared at him. The daises fell through her fingers. "Leave it, Murdoc."

He winced at her as though discovering a sour taste to a strawberry.

"I've just brought you a can of Cola and spent half an hour with you in the park, for fuck's sake."

"Can't I ask you a question?"

"You can, mate, but it don't mean I'll give you an answer. I dunno what's brought this on, but it doesn't matter. We _were_ havin' fun. So shut up."

He scowled at her over the metal edge of the can and drank from it deeply, tipping his head back, fingers squeezing. When he looked back at her she was looping the daisy stems around each other. She had no idea her nails were scraping the small white petals off. He tensed his jaw.

"I'm just wondering what you're playin' at."

She made an angry noise under her breath. "I'm not playin'."

"Then what are you doin' with me?"

"Wait –"

"You should be out lookin' for Hans, not for me."

She looked appalled and furious, her whole face screwing up. "_How_ –"

"I just wanna know what you're after, Pris-_cill_-a."

Pris sat up and glared at him. She snapped, "I'm not _after_ anything. I just felt bad for you so I thought we should hang out. My boyfriend beat you up, but he won't apologise, so I did it for him. That's _it_."

Murdoc cackled at her.

"So you're not happy with him."

On some enraged, hateful urge she shoved him back with the flat of her left hand. His arm jutted back into his face, and he let out a wail. When he dropped the can onto the floor the inside of his upper lip had been cut by the sharp edge of the can. A little puddle of blood was on the lid, swirling into the Cola, and dribbling down his teeth.

She gasped.

"Oh, shit. Murdoc – you alright?"

He exhaled lightly and swiped his tongue gracefully over the wound, lapping up the blood. She thought of the dog-fights, and the gig, and the gore films Hannibal watched with Tony.

"Ow – bitch."

She smiled oddly.

"Are you O.K.?"

Murdoc smirked, "No, I'm fuckin' bleedin', you idiot."

She insisted, "Look, you shouldn't _say_ things like that. It's not your business to go on that way!"

He was laughing at her. He remarked, "I hit a nerve?"

"I don't wanna talk about your fuckin' _brother_!"

The sunlight had been dulled by a bulbous grey cloud. In the weird light, Pris glowered, and Murdoc leaned closer to her, so that their faces were a few inches apart. "T'fuck you doin?" she mumbled.

She didn't even flinch; her gaze did not falter. Her fearlessness frightened him slightly.

His eyes had lowered to hers and they were dark, intent on her. His smile was lazy and similar to his brother's, attractive, but open-mouthed and with sharper-looking teeth. There was still a little bit of blood on the underside of his lip. It was bubbling hotly in the can of Cola. She could hear it hissing like a gas pipe. She could hear his breath in his nose. She could hear her heart in her head.

"We have ta talk about my brother," Murdoc said, as if they were sharing a secret. "All of this is his fault."

"All of _what_, exactly?" she bit back.

"Why we're sitting here."

"You think about things too much, baby-love," she huffed.

"You don't think enough." Murdoc's smile slowly faded.

"Look, Murdoc, your brother's my boyfriend. He fucks up a lot, and I pick up the pieces. It's in the job description."

"What d'ya mean?"

"I know what sort of person he is. I'm not a pillock," she sighed. "I don't want to talk about him, though. What happened to 'who cares about Hannibal'?"

Murdoc wiped the back of his hand over his mouth and shook his head at her in despair. He hissed through his teeth, turning away from her to stare at the dancing greenery on the horizon, "Because we can never _forget_ about him. He never lets us alone, he – he's in the _way_."

"In the way of _what_?" she whispered, dubious.

She saw his shoulders slump as he inhaled. He turned back to her, and, without looking into her eyes, pulled his school tie from around her neck. After fifteen minutes of messing around she had ended up stealing it in one swift, careful movement, then laughing and rolling around in the grass. It seemed, once again, like a terrifying, wonderful dream to him now.

"Murdoc –"

She didn't try to stop him, just stared at his face.

"What are you talkin' about?"

"I'm goin' home," he said.

He stood up, and she tried to yank him back to the floor, but he stepped away.

"Wait a minute!"

He went to turn, but she jumped to her feet and clawed out for his hand. Her fingers gripped his tightly. He felt weak in her large hand.

"Stay," she pushed, "c'mon, we were havin' a good time, just! Don't just go off in a little bitch-fit, cryin' out loud! How _old_ are you?"

"I just thought –"

"Stop thinkin', and just _do_," she grinned. "Come on, I'll teach you a spit trick. We're only muckin' about, Murdoc, it's nothing."

"I know," he lied.

She sat back down, feet crushing the broken daisies. He remained standing, watching her. She hacked up a glob of spit in her mouth and raised an eyebrow at him. "I'll teach ya, it'll be fun."

"We shouldn't tell anyone," Murdoc suggested. He still tasted blood but he didn't care anymore.

"Why? It's just one time."

"Is it?"

"Probably," she lied, and quickly dismissed his mouth popping open to respond. "Now, I'll show ya. Just feel what I do and copy it, you gotta move the muscles in a certain way."

He stopped abruptly.

She took his hands softly in hers and placed them either side of her upper neck, tilting her head back and staring at the slowly moving, stirring blue sky. Murdoc felt her blood, her muscles, her skin under his hands, smooth beneath his palms, moving; alive.

He closed his eyes for a moment.

* * *

Hannibal was in a jeweller's shop. Decapitated blue velvet women displayed pearl necklaces, in one of the shiny windows. It was adorned with little lights and price tags. They were too expensive. He had twenty pounds. There was one worth eighteen pounds and ninety-nine pence, but it didn't look right. It was made up of big round pearls, whereas Mum's had been full of tiny little ones, faded, turning yellow.

A woman in a matching mint green dress and coat and earrings, her greying hair tied in a neat little knot atop her head, was staring at him sheepishly. He stared her down, and, after she had tottered away, he strode up to the little counter with the marble top and beat his fist on it once at the young woman behind it.

"Can't you get any cheap pearl necklaces here?" he growled. He _needed_ one. "It's for my girlfriend," he insisted. A few times he had considered buying Pris jewellery after an argument or a nightful of drunken insults and blue murder in their usual rose-tinted passion. However, he had always reconsidered. Most women's rings were too small to get on her fingers, and she'd never be the type of girl to wear diamonds and gold. She liked sharp silver things.

The woman behind the counter regarded him carefully. Her eyes were a lovely brown colour, but narrowed with distain. "Our cheapest is around nineteen pounds –"

"Don't ya do second-hand stuff? I just – you don't get it. I _really_ fuckin' need a pearl necklace."

He felt as if he was losing his grip and focus on everything around him, and while this was usually pleasurable, it wasn't like smoking Tony's weed; that'd leave brilliant patterns growing and snaking and swirling behind your eyes – like a kaleidoscope – if you lay still and stared and had time to just _be_. He stood still and stared now, but he found this sensation-less disposition highly unpleasant. He was starting to panic and he didn't know why. This was the worst thing that could possibly happen.

"Is there _nothin'_?"

He thought of Mum with her white pearls on her white neck and her pretty eyes with the long lashes, and then he thought of Murdoc.

They were the same thing, the same being. He, his brother, was the constant connection. He was the memory, the dirt fogging the clear water, an angry ghost's hand clutching his shoulder and pulling him back down or into the dark each time he tried to forget and rise up.

He _hated_ him. For, he concluded that very moment, everything bad in his world was at the execution of Murdoc Niccals.

"I'm sorry," said the brown-eyed woman. "We do trade, but not to re-sell."

"Then _where_ can I get one?"

"I suppose you could try Woolworths, they sell a lot of plastic jewellery," she suggested priggishly. Hannibal nodded.

"Right. Thanks."

* * *

Later that day Hannibal returned home with a necklace of plastic gold and plastic, white, pearl-like beads. He pulled out the biscuit tin lined with imitation silk and arranged it inside, a relic. As he watched it sitting there he felt an overwhelming sense of calm, and ran his fingers over the silky fabric beneath.

* * *

In his bedroom Murdoc ran his fingers over the fabric of the air and held his eyes shut, thinking of Priscilla's silky neck.

* * *

**A/N: I'm on a roll once again!**

**I want to thank, before I say anything, everyone who reviewed the last chapter. It was absolutely lovely to have such a big response – let alone it being all so eloquent, encouraging and complimentary. It truly does mean the world to me. I don't think I've ever written faster! Thank yous, love, hugs, and a selection of stuffed animals and sandwiches to: cherry-magpie-x, CaptainDistraction, G0rillaz, SweetCherryCandy, PandaLove01, MaffyUndead and Coy Fish. Much love. :D**

**And of course a huge thank-you to the new favouriters and alerters, it's fantastic to know more people are enjoying this fic. :)**

**Sadly updates will be slow – there won't be any for at least a week as I'm going on holiday this Friday. Still, I hope you all enjoy this chapter. Please let me know what you think! :)**


	12. Chapter Eleven

He was sitting on his bed, staring out at the street through the tiny bird-house window, when he saw her walking towards the door. She was wearing black today, and her right hand, like a dead arthropod, was stuck to her face to hold a cigarette steady. She was staring at her feet in her lovely shiny Doc Marten's with red laces.

The packet of strawberry laces he had stolen from her brother was lying on top of his pillow, untouched. He didn't even like strawberry laces – why he took them he had no idea. He realised weirdly, suddenly, that Hannibal was prone to similar random acts of nastiness. Pris had said yesterday that he was different, but now he wasn't so sure. He kept dreaming about her. He couldn't look into his brother's eyes.

The doorbell rang, and he heard Hannibal smash his way over to answer it. Her voice rang out but he couldn't understand it, muffled behind walls and plaster and fabric. He sighed, and waited for the right moment.

* * *

"So, what were you playin' at?"

Hannibal swallowed. She stood against the door; arms folded tightly, a ladder in her tights and one of his cherry-coloured bites fading above the place where her jugular vein would throb. He had never wanted to kiss her more; he wanted to taste her milky morning tea and the stunning pleasure of the day's first cigarette. It'd be fresh in her.

Instead, he said, "You what?"

"Lyin' ta me," she hissed. "About your brother."

He grunted – he was going to kill that little fucker if he'd been anywhere near her. Pris seemed to be the only genuine, undamaged thing left. He'd even found and taken the fucking _necklace_.

"You've been talking to him?" he whispered.

"Nah," she said abruptly, "but I saw him up by the shops. He looks like a panda, you bloody fuckin' maniac!"

Desperately, he yelped, "You don't get it! He _sold_ my Mum's –"

She shot back, her lips skimming back from her teeth, "I asked him, Hans, an' I know you're lyin' ta me! Your Dad did it, didn't he?"

Hannibal did not move or speak. He didn't know what to say. In the end, had Murdoc not been Dad's favourite, had he not looked _just like_ Mum, it would never have happened.

Hannibal _hated_ him. His hands were quivering, flexing, the S-shaped scar stretching, pale and thick, as his knuckles moved. He watched it nervously. She didn't understand, and she would despise him for feeling and acting this way. He knew it, but she didn't understand. It seemed that no-one did. But how could they? _They_ hadn't seen Mum lying in that bed trying bash Murdoc to death beneath her hipbones.

Sometimes, at night, if he thought about Mum, Hannibal wondered if he should simply finished what she started.

"Look at me, Hannibal."

She sounded disgusted and angry, and so he did as he was told because he couldn't take her disapproval anymore. He looked at her pale blue eyes. She was so pretty. Her teeth were like little pearls –

And he'd _never_ let anyone hurt her.

"You don't get it," he insisted. He tried to stay calm. Usually scaring her was a lot of fun, but he didn't want to this time. He wanted to forget about Murdoc and the argument and the fight. He just wanted to kiss her and run his tongue across those little pearls.

"What don't I get? That you're a fuckin' horrible bastard who smacks his brother around for a birthday present?" She snapped. "What the fuck is the _matter_ with you?"

"You don't get it Pris. It's all _him_. He –"

"Change the record, ya bloody nasty piece of shit," she snarled, and then hawked back a little to spit, but then considered the carpet. "He's a little boy."

He gazed at her. She was the only thing he wanted at the moment, and _she_ didn't want him anymore. Everything had changed in the space of a few weeks. He couldn't take it. He could hear the sound of a boiling kettle in his ears. He just needed her to understand.

He had no intended to speak quietly, but he did. His voice came out breathy and coarse, and then he wanted to cry.

"When I was little, I had a pet rabbit called Karen."

She frowned at him, confused or mocking he couldn't tell. He hated it, and he wanted to straighten her face out for her, but he gritted his teeth and blinked at the tears and sucked in his cheeks and continued.

"I named her after Karen Carpenter. She was the best rabbit. Brown and skinny and that, and she weren't shy at all. Murdoc liked her." He looked at his hands and growled, more to himself than Pris, "He liked _everything_ of mine. My clothes, my things, my rabbit. Dad was going to buy him one in the summer for his birthday, a big expensive white one with red eyes, and a new hutch and stuff. He never even bought Karen a leaf o'fuckin lettuce."

"Why are you talkin' about a rabbit? Are you actually –"

"Shut up!" Hannibal roared, enraged. She never listened. She always thought she was right. "Just _listen_ for five fuckin' minutes, _Prissy_."

"Don't call me that," she barked, but he ignored her and continued.

"Then one night I let Murdoc give her a bowl of food for the night, and I go to bed. When I wake up in the morning Dad's throwin' a dripping black plastic bag in the bin, and it's all because fucking _Murdoc_ left the hutch open, and a fox ripped her up."

Pris blinked at him. His eyes were wider than usual, and shimmering, glazed black, like the strange sea at night. He was going to cry.

"Fucking _Murdoc_," he repeated.

Pris stepped forward. He was worrying her now. Something wasn't right. At first she had wondered if he'd been smoking joints again, but this was _different_. He looked so weak. He wet his lips and split the scab of a cold-sore over it. He lapped at it, blood and pus, and then started talking quickly, strained, wheezing.

"And it happens to everything of mine he goes near. It's like he left everythin' for the foxes. It's just – just like that. And I can't let him do it to Mum – it was her necklace, it was the _only_ thing I had –"

He was frightening her – though it was not with aggression or violence or a dangerous look in his eye this time. It was with the simple black-hearted coldness of a boy, unwanted and in hate.

She had not expected this. She had expected, almost wanted, a brawl or shouting or some sort of animal passion. Over the few hours she had not been at his side he had warped himself. He was not the same.

She should have known better. Hannibal always needed someone to restrict him to sane thought.

"Hans, it's O.K., c'mon, what the hell –"

"I can't have that happen to you."

Something burst inside of her brain, and she found herself terrified but miraculously sympathetic, moved, in love with him again. She rushed at him, her arms open, and stood before him holding the shape.

"C'mere," she said. When he didn't move, she considered slapping him and calling him a pussy. That would have been the acceptable thing to do, but it didn't feel right.

"Why?"

"I wanna give ya a cuddle."

"I thought I was a horrible bastard."

"Y'are," she shrugged, "didn't stop me before though, did it? Here, c'mon."

Pris stepped forward and tucked her head beneath his chin, resting the left side of her face on his chest. His heart thudded softly in her ear. She brought her hands to rub the length of his back, and he pushed his mouth into her hair and sighed. She liked the feeling. His breath was sweeping down her neck and his body was warm. He smelt of Sobranie cigarettes and dry grass.

"When was the last time we 'ad a cuddle, mm?" he asked. He hadn't moved yet. His voice was still the same, croaking and quiet. She wondered if he had started to cry, because he certainly sounded that way. She was about to ask, but then, to her pure delight, his rough fingers came to rub little circles on the back of her neck, and she forgot to think of anything but him.

They weren't particularly good at cuddling, she had to admit it. When either was feeling angry or upset they'd end up shagging, and Hannibal was never one to be gentle and healing with it, and he never liked to cuddle afterwards; he'd rub off his sweat with his t-shirt and then sit at the foot of the bed, watching her, breathing heavily.

Still, she didn't mind. For all of it, sometimes, he could be so very, very nice. Like now. She couldn't remember a time being touched quite so carefully, softly. Apart from yesterday, of course, where she couldn't help but notice Murdoc had the most perfect, girly, gentle hands for making daisy-chains, as he spread his palms over the skin of her throat...

She cleared her throat and held Hannibal tighter, before pushing herself up on her tiptoes and kissing the corner of his thin, bowed mouth. He copied, and she closed her eyes lightly at the touch. His mouth was hot and sweet. She nuzzled his cheek.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. She knew that she loved him. Her fingers gripped him tighter, but he didn't feel close enough.

"'S O.K.," she murmured.

"I don't wanna be like this no more."

Confused, Pris turned her head slightly to look into his eyes, and opened her mouth to speak – but he kissed her. His huge hands clasped either side of her face and forced her into it, and she gladly accepted, eyes dropping shut, sliding her tongue against his upper lip. He made a deep noise. She tasted some of the blood from his broken cold-sore, and hummed. It was like he was draining the life out of her, sucking the poison from some huge, burning wasp sting inside. She grunted and dug her fingers into his shoulders.

Then the door crashed open.

* * *

It seemed that all memory of yesterday had been buried and forgotten. She was looking at him without any feeling in her face, and yesterday she had been flashing him secret smiles and her eyes were languid and gentle.

Now he felt like a stranger. It hurt.

"Murdoc," she gasped.

He wanted to demand to know what was going on, but he stopped himself when he realised he had no right to question her actions. She belonged to him.

He scowled, cleared his throat, and pretended not to care. "Fuckin' hell, can you control yourselves for five minutes?"

"Just get out," Hannibal muttered. He had not moved his mouth from the crown of her head. Pris stood there, one side of her face pressed into him, her eyes wide in her face.

"Fine," Murdoc replied. He started to walk through the room. Pris started to wriggle.

"Maybe – Hans, maybe we should just wait, for a bit."

"Ah, no. Don't let him ruin this. For fuck's sake."

She placed her hands on his chest and pushed herself from him.

"Look," she said, looking up into his dark eyes, "we're all O.K. now, aren't we?"

"Yeah, we're O.K.," he nodded.

"Then, maybe – maybe I'll see you later? I should go. But I'll come over later and we can go for a drink or somethin'."

Hannibal made a grab for her, Murdoc saw. He was watching them through the crack of the kitchen door. She looked so nervous. He found himself smiling.

"Why 'ave you gotta go?"

"I'll see you later," she told him, and glanced awkwardly, almost frightened, in the direction of the kitchen. Murdoc waggled his fingers at her, and she winced, and then rushed her way out of the door.

* * *

**A/N: I'm so sorry this chapter is a little later than expected, guys, but here it is! Unfortunately, I start sixth form within a few weeks, so I'm afraid chapters will be on the go-slow. **

**Thank you and huge hugs to: cup-opener-900, cherry-magpie-x, PandaLove01 and SweetCherryCandy. I love you all forever! :D**

**I hope everyone enjoys this update. Please let me know what you all think! :D**


	13. Chapter Twelve

That evening they spoke on the phone all night, and Hannibal was laughing and laughing like everything in the world was fine again. Murdoc listened to it from the kitchen, eating a hunk of dry bread spread with a thick layer of butter.

"Yeah, alright, it looks like a bowl, but I still love ya," he was saying. There was silence, and then, "No, no, it's one of the reasons _why_!" Then the laughing started again, bright and zealous. The bread was hard and cold in Murdoc's hand and the butter was like drying glue. The kitchen was dark, and in the hallway all of the lights were on, burning electric, burning colour; and it was those simple things that made him feel truly alone once again.

"Come to the fights with me," Hannibal said pleadingly.

Murdoc didn't want to listen anymore. He didn't understand. What could he have possibly said tonight to change her mind so quickly? She must have been lying all along – or, perhaps, as she'd joked, she could forget and forgive because Hannibal _did_ make her scream like a filthy, leather-clad Russian porn star. The images were all-consuming: her head thrown back, cords bursting out in her throat, clawing hands, squeezing eyelids. His groin was hot and aching, but he supposed this was the effect she'd desired to create when she told him such things with that slow, slow smile, tongue skimming her lips and making them shine, all wet –

He grunted and closed his eyes, grinding a knuckle into his temple. This wasn't right. When he looked at her she wasn't pretty at all, but he couldn't help himself. Perhaps he'd misinterpreted lust for gratitude – but he had _nothing_, not now, to be grateful for.

Because, after all, she had carefully spoon-fed him sugar and poison, he realised it now; and he didn't like her anymore.

He made his way up the stairs, and noted through Hannibal's laughter that she had agreed to let him take her to the dog fights. Everything had returned to its original state – Murdoc was alone again and Hannibal was full of lust and happiness. He hated it. He hated the girl, and he hated her for taking his brother, and he hated her for taking away whatever cold comfort she had provided him in the first place.

In his bedroom he glared at the darkness and barked, "_Fuck_ you, you _bitch_." But it made no difference, and he didn't think anything would anymore. Things had changed.

He licked his mouth and it tasted of warm, salty butter. In the window's reflection he looked like a huge, ravenous beetle with those two swollen black eyes. Hannibal was laughing and Murdoc played it over and over and over like a vinyl in Hannibal's newly broken record-player. It drove him mad; but like his mother, Murdoc dealt with his bouts of madness well. He swallowed down that freezing slab of sadness and the burning toffee-splinters of hate, and sat on his bed, grinding his forehead against the wall until it left a sticky, dark stain.

* * *

The next day, school passed in a patchwork mess of prayers, candles, hymns and a mathematics lesson, in which Murdoc dropped pens several times, because Sally Bennett was sat with her knees wide apart, and he had a lovely view of her pink-polka-dot knickers when he ducked his head beneath the table.

She knew what he was doing, of course, and snarled at him repeatedly, offering a panda like himself bamboo sticks. He offered to use them to break her fanny in, and then she got very upset and almost cried. After that, on the way home, a boy called Luke told him to stay away from her.

They were standing in the alleyway a few streets from home, which cut downwards through the park. He had known Luke was following him for a while. He lived in Underhill, and was walking in the complete opposite direction of it.

Finally, he called out.

"Niccals!"

Murdoc didn't turn back. "What?"

"You made my girlfriend cry today."

"Oh, yeah."

Luke made a noise, and then sped up, feet crackling over the gravel. He stood in front of him and shoved him back a little, demanding he stop and listen.

"You were pervin' on her, and you said some pretty fuckin' low things to say. She's a _lady_," Luke growled, "No wonder everyone hates ya, you disgusting shit. I want you to apologise to her."

"I'm not apologising," Murdoc smirked.

"I said I wasn't gonna touch ya because she _asked_ me to, 'cause of your eyes, but now I just don't know!" Luke snapped, and pushed him again. Murdoc let him. He was enjoying this, it was refreshing – he left alive again. "Tomorrow, you go to her and _apologise_!"

"I don't have any reason to?"

"Are you fuckin' special?" he spat, his face interchanging quickly between fury and laughter. "What do you _mean_?"

"Well, let me put it this way," Murdoc winked at him and flicked his tongue out for a moment; "she didn't close her legs, did she?"

He had no idea why, but the scab on his forehead had not been enough to get away from the memories of Pris and her secret smile. And so, he goaded and goaded and goaded.

"She was getting wet for me, mate, I know it when I see it."

Luke howled and threw him back into a wooden fence. Veins were popping and slithering purple beneath the hot red flush on his face. Murdoc laughed. "Oh Jesus, is that it? You're pathetic, come _on_."

"Shut up, now! I _swear_ I'll –"

"What? Do it, then. Go on."

Luke was pushing harder and more frequently now, and Murdoc toppled about slightly with the force of it. He didn't have the anger enough to fight back, but he had some bloodlust, and so he let it continue. "I will!"

"Break my nose, then! C'mon!" Murdoc grinned hugely, and tilted his face to a perfectly assessable, breakable angle.

"You _sick_ –"

"I knew it, you're a pussy," Murdoc laughed again, shaking his head and grabbing his chin between his forefinger and thumb. He stopped chuckling and then smiled up at him poignantly, raising an eyebrow, "And I know a pussy when I smell one, Lukey, if y'know what I –"

And then Luke punched him right in the centre of his face, cracking a silver ring over his nose bone, and snapping it. Everything was full of the bland sweetness of pain for a moment. Luke ran away immediately when the blood started trickling out. Murdoc sighed, content. He leaned his head back on the fence and closed his eyes for a while. He stayed this way for ten minutes, wiped the blood on his shirt sleeve, and then went home.

He did not tell Dad or Hannibal what he had made Luke do – because he had, after all, _made_ him. Every time he thought of Pris he grabbed the tip of his nose and clicked the bone about. It stopped him thinking.

He didn't think of her for two days, at least, but after a while it all got too much.

* * *

"And when we got money, I'll take you out and hire a fuckin' boat and we can sail it at night and have lights on the deck, and we dance and dance and fucking _dance_!"

He grabbed her hands with two free fingers and chucked them onto his shoulders. He twirled them around, grinning into her, and she felt as if the streetlights were bending inwards and that the whole world would change for them.

Pris was wrapped up in his denim jacket with the grass stains and the earthy smell. They were walking home in the late hours, Hannibal glugging down Budweiser and Pris heaving cigarette smoke through her teeth, clouding with her breath. He was walking a few steps ahead of her, feet drunkenly flip-flopping over each other. In the other hand in held four ten-pound-notes like an ace-hand. Together they had won twenty-pounds each betting a tenner on a dog called Grill. It had mauled the other's snout until it was forced to inhale its own blood.

She had never known such fun.

"C'mon, I'll teach ya the fox-trot," he sniggered, and then stuffed the money into her trousers pocket, finger lazily brushing about her inner thigh. She tipped her head back slightly, and his smile grew wider. His teeth flashed dangerously as jagged glass. Next he dropped the bottle of beer to the floor, and it crashed with a wonderful, high-pitched splitting noise.

They screamed with laughter.

"You don't – Hans, what the fuck – ya don't even know the fox-trot!" she managed amid giggles. He mumbled something and then pulled her shaky legs forward.

"O.K. then, Miss Pris," he smirked, "and a one two three, one two three, a one two three, one –"

They were jutting about, back and forth, side to side – she started to chuckle and he hummed some classical song that they played on old films, songs that Billy-Boy liked. Pris closed her eyes lightly and smiled, rolling her shoulders back and letting the night, cool and crisp and sweet as apple skin, flow over her face.

What was she doing? She didn't care anymore. All she knew was that Hannibal was sad, and so in her broken brain she thought this would be the right thing to do about it. She did love him, after all, but she knew that there were lots of different kinds of love, and she didn't know which would quite apply. She loved that he loved her, she supposed.

"And I'll buy you a kitten," Hans was telling her, "and a big house and a proper flash car, and we'll get wed all proper so ya Mum'll be 'appy n'all. Get'cha a white dress!"

"Yeah," she muttered. She knew she looked bad in white but she wouldn't tell him. "Kiss me again, yeah?"

He did. His feet crunched the shards of broken glass.

* * *

The following day she ached from rough sex. Hannibal had slipped back home in the middle of the night, still giggling and cooing at her all the way down the stairs. He told her he loved her and went trudging away in the darkness. She watched him leave in her best underwear, leaning against the door, barely aware of her near-nakedness. The memory of it was hilarious and disturbing.

Billy was not sat at the kitchen table this morning as usual. It was nearly half-past twelve. Her Mother was scrubbing peach-coloured powder into her face.

"Where's Billy-Boy?" Pris asked.

Her Mother said, "Oh, he's out with a friend."

Billy didn't have friends.

"What _friend_?" Pris said incredulously, her hands slapping down on the tabletop and leaving glossy prints.

"He came to the house this morning for him. I dunno, sounded like a bloody German name to me. He's been 'ere before."

"Who is he?"

"He said his name was Murdoc."

* * *

**A/N: I'm sorry this is short and not as good, but trust me when I say, most of this is filler for the next chapter, which will be very exciting, to say the least! :D **

**I also wanted to explain Murdoc's reasoning for deliberately making someone break his nose when he was in school. So there it is. Haha! xD**

**As always, I am eternally grateful and in love with all of my wonderful reviewers. I offer you brownies and strawberry laces ;) the lovely SweetCherryCandy, PandaLove01, cherry-magpie-x and Coy Fish.**

**And of course, all of the new favouriters and alerters! It's great to know everyone is enjoying the fic, and I hope to hear from you all soon. :)**

**I hope everyone enjoys the update, please let me know!**


	14. Chapter Thirteen

One of Dave's crumpled blue shirts was lying in the washing basket. She snatched out for it, yanked her t-shirt over her head, and then fastened it up as quickly as possible. It was far too big, the sleeves dangling below her hands, the collar huge and limp, exposing a large stretch of bony white chest. She screwed the sleeves up over her elbows and then pulled on her only pair of still slightly damp jeans.

"What are you _doin'_?" Her Mother gasped. "That's Dave's shirt, Priscilla –"

"Where did he say he was goin'?"

"Take that shirt off!"

"_Where_?" Pris barked, and booted the table leg with her bare foot angrily. She felt a nail crack and something hot and liquid running between her little toe, but she didn't look. "For cryin' out loud, just tell me!"

"I told him not to go much farther than the park," Her Mother shrugged, her powder puff waving peachy dust into her eyes. Pris nodded and kicked herself into her Mother's pair of brown beach sandals, which she now reserved for summer gardening in her short skirts. She headed for the door, Mother shouting after her, but completely ignored.

* * *

If she knew Murdoc well, which she supposed she did, he'd have taken things to the absolute limit. They'd be right by the plastic yellow slide in the park, just across from the black iron gate that opened out into the other side of the town. Outside the day was fragrant of wild flowers and weeds and chimneys. Her mouth was dry and she was parched of nicotine, but currently, that didn't seem to hold any significance. He'd kidnapped her little brother – an extreme way to put it, maybe – but it was certainly a loose interpretation of the thing. Billy had no idea about anything other than Lego bricks and Hans Zimmer. She didn't understand what he was playing at, but she knew it couldn't be good, or honest, or trustworthy.

It was to get at her, and it had been totally successful.

When she arrived in the park she saw Murdoc and Billy-Boy. Like hunting animals they were kneeling opposite each other, noses near pressed into the ground. Billy had a shiny box in his hand. Murdoc was staring at him, apparently disturbed. He stood up suddenly. An amber light briefly flickered over Billy's cheeks, and she realised he was holding a lighter to something on the floor.

"Billy!"

Billy did not appear to hear her, but Murdoc did. His head flew up, and then a dark, leisurely smile spread over his face. He leaned against the railing, lean chest tense and heaving, apparently delighted with himself. He looked different. His hair didn't have the usual spidery mass of knots at the back, and he was wearing a jacket; black leather with bright zip-up pockets and a lovely, silky lining. He looked cleaner, cut sharp. There was a crawling movement around his feet, _fuzzing_, almost, and his dark shoes were scuffed dusty beige.

He was standing on an ant hill. Billy flicked the lighter again. A flame died. It left a thimble-full of ant's ashes.

"What are you doing?" She snapped, and then, frustrated, shoved him onto the floor, nose scraping over the concrete. "That's disgusting, Billy! They're ants, what the fuck is this? This is fuckin' –"

The lighter chinked away and landed at Murdoc's feet. He bent down slowly, picked it up, and slid it coolly back into his pocket.

"Have you been through a tramp's holiday suitcase?" he smirked at her, eyes running the length of her. Pris growled, and then grabbed her brother by the sleeve of his shirt and pulled him up.

"Why are you fuckin' _burning_ ants, you sick twat?" she demanded. Murdoc shrugged and smiled at her slightly, his eyes carefully tracing the bow of her upper lip, her eyes, her round little chin.

"He asked me if he could, actually. Ask him, if you don't believe me."

Pris let him go and he went tumbling out of her grasp. She slammed Murdoc into the rail with her knees and one of her hands. She didn't care what this looked like. She wanted to kill him; her whole head ached redly with it. This was wrong. Going near her little brother was just _too_ much.

"What are you doing with him in the _first_ place?" she snarled, and only then noticed, this close, that his nose was turned at a painful angle in the centre. He had a small pink cut across it, and with all of his wounds, looked as if covered in Zulu war-paint.

"We're friends, Pris," Billy said softly as Murdoc continued grinning wildly up into her face. She shook him, hard.

"Why did you _do_ this?"

He started to laugh.

"We're going to write some music," Billy-Boy explained gently from her side, fingers entwined before his face like a squirrel. His black eyes shone. "We're friends. I'm going to show him my Stravinsky record to see if he likes it."

"Shut up," Pris said absently, poking him backwards with her free hand. She turned to Murdoc with a strange look on her face, a cold expression caught between fear and curiosity. "_Talk_, Murdoc, or I'll break this bloody face again!"

"I will talk. When I'm alone with you," he purred.

"We're not going to be alone anytime soon, and I ain't got time to be patient. You crossed the fuckin' line," she growled, and shook him again so that his head rattled on his neck like a ball of paper stuck to a pipe cleaner. The railings clanked. He chuckled quietly, and she thought of Hannibal's chuckle, as he sat watching a mauled dog being dragged across the ground through a runway of blood-slick.

"Get rid of him," Murdoc wiggled his index finger between Billy's eyes, "an' I'll talk."

"But Murdoc –"

Murdoc glanced down at the little boy and his upper lip flinched. Pris didn't take her eyes off him. She wanted to slice him open, right down the centre, cock to collar, and watch him bleed. Bastard. Perhaps Hannibal was right.

"I'll listen to it later," he interjected, "I promise ya."

"When?"

"Later, I dunno, sometime this week. Have it ready."

Billy said, "O.K.."

Billy gazed at his sister uncomprehendingly, and then tugged at Dave's shirt resting over her long, frail bones. "Are we going home now, Pris?"

"Yes," she whispered into Murdoc's face, still refusing to turn away. Murdoc felt a flutter of blood below his waistband. She had a lovely voice. When she whispered it rang out in him like a scream through a cut-glass vase – and _God_, she was all panting an angry and this was just the way he had wanted her.

After another shove, she vaulted away from him. She wasn't wearing a bra. He could see the raised buds of her nipples beneath the blue fabric.

"This isn't over," she muttered, causing him to focus once again on her face, "you better fuckin' explain yourself in a bit. I'm taking him home now. You stay _away_."

He watched them leave in his leather jacket, running his thumb across the zip. Billy was being dragged away on his toes as he held onto her hand. She walked too fast for him, and Murdoc could hear her shouting and hear him crying, and he could not _wait_.

* * *

Out of all of the great tragedies Billy knew, like Romeo and Juliet or The Gingerbread man being salivated upon and digested, this had to be the greatest. He was sitting, waiting, staring over the yellow linoleum of the kitchen table with his Stravinsky record lying neatly on his lap. Pris had taken his only friend away from him, and he didn't understand why.

The ants didn't have feelings. They didn't cry when they died. They didn't even make a noise, they just walked into fire, like the dead twigs and leaves, and left black powder behind. Ants had no reason anyway. What was the purpose of an ant, after all? To make hills in the summer? He didn't know, but Pris was very angry about it, and when they got him she rapped at his face with the soft side of a wooden spoon.

"Billy, ya listen to me," she said, so Billy listened, "don't you ever go near that boy again."

Billy said, "But we're friends."

"He's been a very nasty boy to me," Pris explained. Billy nodded his understanding – but he thought Murdoc was nice. "If he comes asking for you again you don't let him in, you stay away."

"He's my friend, though!"

"He's not your friend, Bill."

"He is!"

Pris glared at him. She was making him a jam sandwich for breakfast, and pulled out a butter knife from the cutlery draw without looking.

Billy tried to reason with her. "Humans have their own hills, Pris, we don't need the ants. Ants don't cry when they –"

"You don't _kill_ things, it doesn't matter whether they cry or _not_!" she yowled, and then she made a frustrated, desperate noise and next a wooden spoon was hurtling into his cheek. It slapped with a dull, fleshy sound and left a hot circle on his face. "It's evil," she finished quietly, dropping the spoon onto the table and clenching her teeth.

Billy cried for a while, rubbing his cheek, and then wept, "Ya go and watch the dogs fight though! _You're_ the evil one!"

Pris cringed as she leaned forward, staring after him, shocked. After kicking the table her foot still hurt.

She had changed into her own clothes and a pair of white socks. There was a tiny blood stain in the corner by her little toe.

* * *

He had been watching the house for a while now. The night was setting a tender violet around the tiny, chalky green gardens and lamplight of the terraced houses. The traffic hissed by from the main road, and now the park was silent. Children had left their laughter here and occasionally it pinged through his ears when the rusting chains of the swings creaked beneath his weight.

In the butcher's across the road he could see a man in white slicing up marbled pink meat.

Pris' house was not far from here. He knew it, could see it. A light was on in her bedroom. A light was off in Billy-Boy's. It was nine o'clock by his haphazard guess. He would go and get her now.

After ringing the doorbell a few times, nothing happened, and so he stuck his finger, hard, into the button and let it ring out. _Deeeeeee. _

He knew her white hair and pussycat face even through the swirling glass. When she answered the door her mouth curled and her eyes narrowed and she said, in the most threatening way possible: "You."

"I'm here to explain myself," he told her. "Where's Billy?"

She raised an eyebrow. "He's in Timbuk-fucking-Tu, you pillock. Where the fuck do ya think he is?"

She stood right in front of the doorway, defensive, her arms crossed. Murdoc stepped up onto the porch and pressed his knee against her legs, smiling. The junction between her thighs felt warm.

"Get off," she grunted, and jutted her own knees forward, knocking him back a little. He put his fingers around the door frame and grinned into her, pleading, demanding, overjoyed to simply see her face. He was getting so cold now, and he thought of her snowy skin with its wonderful heat and wanted her.

"Let me in," he ordered.

Her pale blue eyes wandered over his face.

"No," she said after a moment.

"Let me in," he repeated.

"No."

Murdoc pushed himself forward so that the door jittered, unable to hold up against his force. They were so close he could smell her breath, ripe and pungent and weirdly, stagnantly sweet, like overripe blackberries.

"Then I'll keep coming back," he glowered, hushed but sincere, "and I'll tell Hannibal about everything you've said. I'll tell him about every single _fucking thing_ you said."

"You wouldn't dare. He'd snap your neck!" She spoke loudly now, and he knew she was panicking behind her blank face and jaded eyes. They flitted over his face and his hands with a quiet dread that he knew, if he could pinpoint and draw out, like the poison of a wasp-sting just beneath her flesh, would overwhelm her. He wanted her to hurt and feel as bad as he had, when he saw her stood there, wrapped within his brother's arms.

Murdoc spoke quickly, and he started to spit with it, bubble at the mouth. He hadn't drunk anything all day. "Probably! But I swear ta God it'd be worth seeing the fuckin' look on your face, Pris." Steadily the speed and noise level rose until he was yelling into her face. He was going mad again, but it felt like the only sensible thing to do. He didn't _care _and so he let it happen. "You're a liar and a cheater – and you get away with everything – and you're a bitch, you're a fucking _bitch_!"

She started to howl back at him, and began brutally heaving him backwards off the step he stood on. She stepped outside along with him, the door slamming behind her. "You wouldn't dare!" she bellowed, "You wouldn't _dare_!"

Murdoc, the thrill of a fight fresh and warm in his cold veins, found himself crazed on some elusive high. Without thinking, and hating her for shoving him around, as always, he slammed his whole body back into her, throwing her almost to her feet.

"_Don't_ push me around!"

Were they actually about to fight? She was starting to dribble, and it revolted him, but he didn't care.

"You won't _dare_ tell him!" she screeched. Her hands clawed at the air. A pulse was jutting all over him in different places every time, and his ears felt as if full of flies, humming there.

"I would!" he growled.

She snarled and threw himself into him, grappling at his leather jacket, tugging and tugging and slathering into his face, "You wouldn't _dare_. If he doesn't hurt you _I fucking will_. You deserve it. You fuckin' delusional little freak! You messed about with my _brother_."

Murdoc panted back at her, his eyes hooded and glazed as they looked back into hers, "I wanted ya, I had to _make_ you come to find me. I had to."

"Why?"

Saliva was wet and drawly in her mouth; it was drooling from the corner slowly, warm, thick. She looked like a hungry dog.

"Because I wanted to know what changed! What _changed_?"

She blinked at him, grunting and grabbing, mouth forming words but never speaking them.

"Tell me!" Murdoc hissed. "Why did you do that?"

Her grip was getting weaker. She continued to blink at him, apparently entranced by something. This was all so very, very strange.

Murdoc continued, frantic, "What could he have _possibly_ fuckin' said to make you do that? I thought you were leavin' him, I thought he didn't love ya, I thought you –"

"I don't think," she said suddenly, and Murdoc couldn't believe what he was seeing. She let go, allowing him to fall gently back to his heels, and pressed the backs of her hands into her eyes, groaning.

"No, you don't," he said, after a long, buzzing pause. She glanced up at him from behind her folded hands, wiping her dribble. "You led me on," he said, "I thought you wanted to make it better."

Pris said nothing, and then Murdoc stepped closer, comforted in the knowledge that this truly concluded whatever had happened. He still didn't know. She looked destroyed, and he felt it – it ended here.

"I hate you," he told her simply, and then stepped closer and said, pushing his lips into her clean-smelling hair, "I _hate_ you."

She didn't move.

"Fuck you!" he barked, and then she jumped visibly, taken aback. She looked up at him with her big round blue eyes again, and then, face contorting, spat on the ground before him.

"Fuck you too," she scowled, and then stood up and shoved at him again. "Go on, _fuck_ off!"

Murdoc, instead of resisting, welcomed this closeness and laughed harshly into her face. "Come on, do it, then," he taunted, and wiggled his eyebrows at her.

She let out a high-pitched, whiny noise and then, in desire and pure, raw rage, clashed her mouth onto his. He let out a long, long moan and his hands were yanking at her hair, running, dancing, and she was kissing him back so fiercely, angrily, whacking her tongue around his mouth and over his lower lip before biting down on it, seizing his shoulders and pushing him against the door. His fingers moved careful, delicate trails down her throat, stinging across the bite his brother had made three nights before, before sliding up to stroke the back of her neck. He pressed their bodies together.

He felt cold and so she rubbed her thumbs over his cheeks, and the anger was leaving her, and now the gnashing teeth and gnawing and grunting was gone, and in its place was his soft, gentle mouth. It was terrifying. His tongue flicked over hers in tiny, tender motions, and it made her brain tingle.

She stopped, unable to cope, moving her head a few inches back to look into his eyes. They were closed. He brushed his nose against hers and exhaled heavily. He seemed to be choking.

"I didn't mean what I said. Ya know that," he whispered. "Don't ya?"

Pris nodded, and stared at his peaceful face for a few seconds longer, feeling immediately sick. She was a bad person. She felt sick. She was nothing but a nasty little girl cheating at hopscotch, turning at the wrong time and leaping carelessly from one place to another. Little girls who jumped too far never fared well. She saw it a few weeks ago.

They ended up falling down with cut knees, their white socks slowly turning red.

* * *

**A/N: WOW, I do believe this is the longest chapter I've ever written. I could have probably spanned this for two, but seeing as updates will be less frequent, I wanted to give my amazing readers what, I think, a lot of them wanted. MURDOC/PRIS OMFG :P**

**We'll see how this one goes... ;)**

**Thank you as always to the wonderful PandaLove01, the adorable SweetCherryCandy, the delectable cherry-magpie-x and the lovely Coy Fish. Your reviews truly are medicine for a poorly heart. **

**And as always much thanks to my brilliant favouriters and alerters!**

**I hope has survived this huge chapter, and enjoyed it! Please let me know what you think! :) **


	15. Chapter Fourteen

"Stop."

Murdoc's eyes were wide open, and his chest rose and fell so quickly it looked as if someone was stamping on a bicycle pump rammed up his arse. He clawed out for her hands, making a thick, tacky wet noise from behind his teeth. Pris sprang back. His kiss stung on her mouth.

"Stop, now."

"Please," he said in a weirdshly deep, needy tone that vibrated through her chest. Pris wriggled her fingers behind her back. She worried he had tasted his brother and mistaken it for posh cigarettes or alcohol, anything that warmed your soul and rotted your biology. "Please, kiss me again," he begged. She could not.

"I didn't think about what I was doing," she told him harshly. His eyes slid closed, contently, and she could not fathom it. The streetlight was orange over his skin and made him look like his skin was made of melted scented candles. They seemed to be trapped here, in a little frozen moment, like the greyly carbonated, jumping characters on a paused video tape.

"Don't think, don't, please – another kiss," he said with his eyes still closed. He was so vulnerable, but now, so was she. Admit the sherbet lemon fizzing of happiness, and romance, there was a threat – so much like Hannibal's kisses, where he might just bite down a little too hard on her tongue if she turned her head too far the wrong way, or broke off first.

"No."

His eyes opened, and he looked greedily over her throat, "Why did you do it in the first place, then?"

"I don't _know_," she exclaimed, throwing her hands up into the air. "You'd pissed me off, so – I just – I was so fuckin' _angry_!"

He smirked at her, and it struck her again that she despised and adored him so intensely it pained her. This was very, very wrong, but he made her so angry, heated all of her cold snake's blood, and she craved it now, and would crave it until she had it again. She had felt exactly this way about his brother all those years ago, when he'd been that older boy, smashing beer bottles against the walls; cut lips and big, dirty hands.

"You wanted to kiss me."

"_You_ did this! This is your –"

"Shut up," Murdoc muttered, and snatched out for her longer sections of her and pulled her down onto his mouth. He kissed her as if he wanted to eat all of her teeth, like a dentist's spit sucker, like he wanted to consume. She opened her mouth and invited it, grunting, but then kicked herself back off the wall and glared at him, shocked. She didn't understand anything that was happening anymore. If she could simply move and get away things would be clearer, it was like those childhood memories of seeking fresh air in a cloud of her Father's bluish cigar smoke.

"I said stop it, Murdoc!"

He leaned forward. His eyes were beautiful, she thought for the first time in her life. At the look on his face – the small smile, the lazy intent darkness of his eyes – she felt a strange, naked sensation; as if all five of his fingers were just trailing up her legs, her thighs, and pushing inside.

"I don't want ta stop it," he contended, grinning. "You _showed_ me you want me. Have what you want, uh? There's no Hannibal here. There's no nothin'."

She had to make this end now; she had gone too far. It always seemed one of them kept pushing the limits of right and wrong. Something about him inspired some thrilling, rebellious need in her, and she supposed it felt this way for most girls.

The difference was that he wouldn't stop now, not with her. This was a chemical reaction in which she could never create, no matter how many times she tried, an equilibrium. It would burn and burn and burn and react.

"He's always goin' ta be there," she whispered, lightly touching her temple with her index finger. Inside her house, her Mother's silhouette moved down the stairs and into the kitchen.

"Only if ya let him be." He had not stopped running his hands down her arms. She had never felt so desperately wanted before. She swallowed down the smart of lemon sherbet's aftertaste and shook her head.

"I made a mistake, Murdoc, and I feel sick as a fuckin' dog now," she ground out through her teeth, "I didn't want this. You made me angry and I just lost it. Ya get that?"

He glared into her face, his gory wounds about his mouth illuminated a bold, cranberry red in the streetlight. She thought of dogs again, dog fights, dog hunting, dogs sniffing around the alleyway by the butcher's gutter's blood-misted water.

"I _lost_ it," she insisted, "my brain wasn't in my fuckin' 'ed."

"I was in your head, and you wanted me, because you like me."

"You said ya hated me."

"I didn't mean it," he said suddenly, his fingers curling tightly around the fabric on her shoulder. "I thought you were messin' me about, I thought you didn't care –"

"I _don't_ care! Are you cracked? Are you seriously fuckin' _cracked_?" she snapped, "It was a _reaction_."

"You don't need to lie," he smiled.

"I'm not."

"I said don't lie," he pressed calmly, and then stepped forward. She felt those hot imaginary fingers crawling inside of her thighs, folds – the way he _looked_ at her was making it happen. "I'll go now – y'know, before you hit me." He had noticed her fingers wriggling behind her back. "But I'm going to find you again, because you're the only person that gives flyin' fuck about me."

_How wrong he is_, she thought sadly, _oh well_. Pris was rarely driven by anything other than sex or money, sometimes aggression. She liked to play with boys. She liked to play with matches and dead leaves.

"That makes ya matter," Murdoc told her in that strange deep tone. He ran his index finger softly over her wrist and down her palm. "Night, Priscilla. Sweet dreams."

In her dreams, he made love to her slowly like her breath fed his life, or a nicotine addiction – she couldn't decide which. Afterwards they lay upon her Mother's bed smoking Sobranie cigarettes and she felt like the Queen of the World.

* * *

"You gone quiet."

"Yeah, we're watchin' a film, Hans."

"I don't mean that."

They were watching _The Shining_ in the dark of Pris' bedroom. They sat at the foot of her bed.

"What'cha mean, then?" she asked blankly, her hands stirring swirls in the dark green duvet.

"You ain't talkin' about nothing lately."

"I'm talkin' right now, ya prick."

"All you say is 'yeah' and 'no' and that, you ain't yourself."

"I'm just tired, work just tries me out."

Hannibal gazed at the side of her face. He smiled slowly.

"You don't need to lie."

Pris looked at him for a while, her stare flicking between his mouth and eyes. The TV's colours flipped over his face one by one; white, blue, black, blue, red, white, black. The dark colour of his eyes never changed, and his expression didn't change.

"I'm not lying, I'm just tired," she whispered dozily.

"I said don't lie."

She told him to get out then, suddenly, blindly petrified. He laughed at her.

"Why? C'mon, speak. C'mon."

"Every time I speak I fuck somethin' up," she muttered, "Just leave me alone."

"_Why_?"

"I'm on my fuckin' period, Hans, just get out, for Christ's sake! I'm menstrual!" she bit at him, and then he left, shaking his head, laughing. John's wife screamed when he closed the door, and she was alone again.

* * *

The next day of work ticked by on fag breaks and thumping the toes of her Docs on her cashier desk. She half expected Hannibal to come clattering in again to buy some Angel Cake, but he did not show. Murdoc didn't show either, not at her house, in the park – she had even stalked around the school gates for a while but she couldn't find him. She didn't understand what, exactly, she was looking for anymore. A part of her was pining for Murdoc, absolutely, his youth, his need for her, his idiocy. The other part wanted Hannibal, what she had always known. She could not look him in the face anymore.

At home, Billy-Boy sat watching Disney princess films. When she stepped outside for another cigarette her raw breath clouded in the air, and then crystallised, and she felt like an ice princess for real. She could just imagine Hannibal's anger melting her to an oily blonde puddle.

Billy asked about Murdoc often, and Pris guessed he probably asked the moon questions about him to. Billy did that a lot, spoke to the moon. She knew it drove people mad, but who was she to change him, to stop that progression? It was always their choice, never her fault.

She looked at the moon and heaved out her last cigarette-cloud, staring.

"It's not my fault," she said.

* * *

**A/N: I'm back! Didja miss me? ;)**

**After a very long break, I come bearing a small chapter. A bit of filler. I apologise to all of my wonderfully loyal readers – not to make excuses, but I've just began my A Level courses, and what with writing hundreds of essays and trying to have a social life amidst the stress, I haven't had a lot of writing time. Here's a little fix for all of you anyway, I hope everyone enjoys!**

**Thank yous, cakes and cuddles to: SweetCherryCandy, PandaLove01, cup-opener-900 and cherry-magpie-x! You guys seriously mean the world to me, I'd be nowhere without your encouragement and support. Much love!**

**Please let me know what you think!**


	16. Chapter Fifteen

"Dad?"

Jacob was leaning over the sink, head bowed, a glass of water in his hand. His upper half was naked and full of tired, folded muscles like the stretched stomach of an old cat. It was late morning and Hannibal felt new. Washed, dressed in a nice dark shirt, ironed trousers, a pair of slightly too small shiny black brogues.

"Dad?" he called, a little louder. Jacob turned himself slowly, his long hair rippling greasily about his shoulders like an unwashed, battle-fresh Jesus.

"Yeah?" he muttered. Too many times Hannibal had feared he was looking in the mirror when he looked into this guy's eyes.

"How do I – how do I get a job?" he yanked the words from himself. It shamed him to no end; felt like, at any moment he might have to ask the guy to teach him how to hold his cock to piss. So juvenile.

"Go to the centre," Jacob said bluntly, taking a shaky glug of water. It didn't sooth the electric grating sound in his throat.

"Yeah, O.K., I just dunno where it is," Hans pushed on. "I got dressed nice 'n smart like y'do. I need to write one of those CV paper things."

"Go to the centre," his father repeated. "It's down past the second hand car dealers on Whitmore."

"Will it be open now?"

"Yeah."

Hannibal nodded, "Right. I'll get goin' then."

"Right."

He hadn't expected much, but at least a little 'good luck' might've been nice. It didn't matter though. When he told Pris she'd be putty in his fucking hands again. He'd save and save to get a bit of rent money, and then get out of the house and get happy; and she'd follow him around like a duckling like she used to when she was younger, and kiss the hollow below his jaw like she loved him when she was younger. He'd grow up and reverse time. He'd grow up, get money, get Pris and get out.

The walk to the job centre was a long one, but he didn't really mind. He hadn't walked left off their estate since he'd been back at school, and it felt so strange but familiar, ghostly. Back when he'd had a blue chopper bike he'd come riding up here with Tony of an evening and have races down that one sloping road by the posh houses with the orange slate roofs. Memories like that didn't leave him either, it was one of the few things that numbed him down. He remembered that Murdoc had never learnt to ride and bike, and that Pris had once snogged a guy who owned a moped when they had a fight when she was seventeen. Apart from stupid things, what had he really done? He'd gone to school and passed his Maths and Chemistry exams – and then pissed around on a chopper bike and fucked the same little girl for a few years.

What are your defining, appealing qualities, Hannibal Niccals? A woman in an office suit might ask him when he tried to write a CV. And he'd have to reply, 'Well love, I'm mighty good at bike racing and eating pussy!' Only the porn industry would be interested, and frankly, he couldn't stand women that screamed in bed, so it'd never work out.

Maybe he was just being an idiot for even trying to get employed, but it seemed like a good idea. Pris would be impressed, Dad would. Murdoc didn't really matter; as soon as he could Hannibal would forget the boy ever existed.

The job centre was a grey building with long windows and a purple and green sign beside the door. Inside there were women and men wearing suits, and a few people sat around a coffee table full of self-help leaflets and business magazines. It was a sad scene. He walked up to the desk.

"Hello," he said to the Asian woman in his best voice. He tried to pronounce things properly, soften it a little. He looped his tongue around his E and O.

"Morning," she smiled. She had a boring sort of face. "How I can help?"

"I'm here for an interview," he said in his best voice.

"Right, O.K.." She clicked about on her computer, and then looked back up at him, "What's your name?"

"Hannibal Niccals."

She winced at little after he said 'Hannibal', looked at him curiously, and then told him to take a seat. Hannibal did, and he picked up a magazine like everybody else, and that sludgy, dark feeling of responsibility and age seeped in through his ears.

* * *

Pris felt ten years old again. She was standing on top of a swing in the playground, bending her knees and rocking her hips to make the swing move, bars creaking, the sun flashing off her boots like lightning bolts. Murdoc was sat beside her, unmoving on his swing, leaning forward on his knees sucking his way through her cigarettes. Two children, a brother and a sister, she assumed, were standing on the verge of soft tarmac, waiting. They had been there for a while now.

"Maybe we should move, Pris," Murdoc muttered, glancing up at her.

"Nah," she said, flying backwards so the air whooped in her ears. "Just because they're little, don't mean they deserve my fuckin' swing."

"Are you always so relentlessly mean?" Murdoc chuckled, and as if to contradict him completely she turned and gave him a smile as quick and sweet as a shot of cherry liqueur.

"No, baby-love," she told him. He had to agree. She was probably the nicest thing he had ever known.

Two weeks had passed since the kiss; three days since they had began talking again, when he found her waiting around the school gates, threatening him about the kiss. And that kiss, although she had forbade it to ever happen again, had felt maddeningly good, and it reverberated through him every time he thought of her face. She was a good thing, a nice thing. A mean bitch, a mean cheating bitch, but so, so _nice_. She liked to listen to him whenever he was shat up about something, she liked talking, but thankfully she was the only girl he'd ever been interested in _talking_ with. Of course, watching her mouth pop around some letters was sexy, quietly quietly sexy – but more importantly she actually _cared_ about him, and he'd do anything for a continuous feed of that sort of attention. She gave it like a hospital drip, healing stuff.

"You _are_ mean," he shook his head – he enjoyed teasing her too much.

"Ain't mean, I'm a realist. One day they're gonna have ta wait for the swing, may as well know how it feels early on, set 'em up."

"You don't feel bad about Hannibal. That's mean." He had to say it, because they hadn't spoken about it at all, and it was setting his teeth on edge.

"_He's_ mean," she shrugged. "He doesn't feel bad about me, so fuck him."

That was all of the confirmation Murdoc needed. He grinned.

"You're right."

"Of course I'm fucking right," she snapped, and then jumped down from the swings, that lemur-like grace sending her neatly to her feet in a sun-misted glance. "Come on, Niccals, we're getting chips," she ordered, and then glared over at the children. "Enjoy the swings, you cock-heads!"

* * *

"So, Hannibal, what brings you to the centre today?" another suit asked. Hannibal swallowed down the taste of hot sick in his mouth.

"A job," he mumbled.

"Naturally. What I mean to say is, why now, what has inspired you to enter the world of work?" The guy's eyes grazed over his blotchy facial wounds, and Hannibal smirked. He did look right on the verge of fight or flight response, a cranberry colour had risen to his ears and beneath his jaw, he looked all itchy.

"My girlfriend," he said honestly. "I won't mess you about, mate, I ain't too sharp and I don't have any real skills, I'll just do whatever I can so I can get some money. I wanna get a place for us, and be her husband and have some kids with her. I gotta grow up and make some dosh."

"You've a record of five minor criminal offences, Mr. Niccals," the suit warned. "It won't be quite that easy."

"It was graffiti, and then a few fights. I haven't been a very good kid, but I'm tryin' my best to make up."

"You'd say you have, perhaps, reformed?"

"Yeah, right."

"Right, well that's a very redeeming feature. We'll work on this personal statement now."

* * *

He returned home having sent a job application to three supermarkets and a used car dealers. It felt good. Dad was in the living room watching an antiques show, cracking his toes repeatedly, one by one.

"I sent off an application," was the first thing he told him. Dad nodded.

"Wonderful."

"It _was_, yeah," Hannibal growled, and then stalked his way towards the phone. He needed a night out after this, the writing had seemed to go on forever, he could still smell the biro and warm printed paper. Tony would answer him. He dialled, waited, knocking his knuckle against the wall.

"Hullo?"

"_Cracker_!" Hans exclaimed, rejoicing in the freedom of forgetting about the best voice, "Come to the pub with me, yeah? I've been at the job centre for ages. Need to cut a bit fuckin' loose."

"I'm supposed to be bloody baby sittin' these, ain't I?" You could hear two distinctly infant, female voices from behind him, a squeaky hum. Hannibal sighed.

"I'll ring Pris then."

"Hmm, get her legs open, cut a bit loose," Tony laughed. Hannibal snorted.

"Right."

"It's nice that she's a proper part of your family n'that though, seriously, nice one. You wouldn't have thought she'd be the meet the parents sort."

"What you on about?"

"I saw her 'n your brother walking back with your dinner, yeah? They had a massive bag o'chips."

Tony stood silently for a moment, waiting. Then the line cut off.

* * *

**A/N: Oh no, worried, Murdoc? ;)**

**Well, after another long break I return with my next chapter. Again, it's more-or-less filler for events to come. IN THE NEXT CHAPTER. Unfortunately, because this'll be a biggie, I may be quite some time publishing it. Thank you, my wonderful readers, for being so patient and understanding.**

**A special pudding endorsed thank-you to my life's loves: PandaLove01, MaffyUndead, cup-opener-900, Coy Fish and cherry-magpie-x!**

**Much love to all of my other fantastic favouriters and alerters! **

**Please let me know what you think, see you soon! :D **


	17. Chapter Sixteen

They were in her bedroom, blasting The Specials' _Stupid Marriage_. It appeared Pris seemed to know only eight words of the song, muttering "Where did you get that nice sun tan?" at every appropriate moment. In any other circumstance this would have annoyed him, but now they were lying side by side on her crumpled bed and everything seemed wonderful.

"Do you like this one?" she asked him. He nodded, because he did. Somehow Hannibal's shit music sounded less shit in her bedroom. "Me too," she said.

Still Hannibal would not leave his head. Here, now, every time he saw her he imagined the bulk of his brother's mouth hitting her face like birdshit. He had to speak his name again, just one more time, just to feel his presence.

"I think Hannibal hates me," he told her.

"You know what I think? I think it's just situational," she shrugged. "Like, now, he'd hate you. But I bet if you could play a bass as good and sexy as this he'd love you for all eternity."

Murdoc laughed. "Would you?"

"It's difficult not to. When I heard this live I was standing right by a speaker and those bass vibrations hit me deep, right down in my panties, y'know what I mean?" she winked. Murdoc felt all of his blood rush in two opposite directions. His face and cock seemed to heat up simultaneously and it was just pure terror and bliss. Chuckling at the feeling he rolled onto his side, so they were face to face, mingling their breath in a balmy, soggy vapour between their noses.

"You could love me," he whispered.

"I could."

At those words he closed his eyes and everything went quiet. When Pris spoke her voice was loud and full of the sort of wavery fear all girls have when they're genuinely threatened.

"You're fifteen-years-old," Pris said.

He could smell her now, this close: clean _Daz_ washing powder on her clothes, Turkish cigarettes and cheap strawberry bubblegum on her breath. She was wearing perfume too, acidic and floral – but it had grown old and sweaty now, made her smell a lot like a prostitute.

They were inches from touching; feet, hands, noses, both lying side by side and turned to each other on top of her creased green duvet, bed sunken with their weight. She lay there and watched him slowly, fluttery-eyed, completely still. He was growing bored with this patience. He leaned his face closer and grinned, "Oh, I _see_. We're entering a PG situation now, are we?"

Pris smiled stupidly. She didn't move closer, but her big round eyes flickered down to his mouth – once, twice – and that was enough to keep him still for a while. Her smile began to slither away and then saw her swallow, throat muscles constricting with it. He craned his neck closer.

"No, listen," she said quietly, voice gritty.

He didn't want to listen to her anymore. He shook his head, exhaling loudly, and then he demanded irritably, "What?"

One of her hands, corded with masculine muscle, moved to brush against his. She ran her thumb over his knuckles in a single, steady motion.

Her touch was medicinal, like cool water over a burn.

"You're fifteen-years-old," she repeated, and this time she didn't smile all close-mouthed and secret: instead, she looked at the wall opposite, at its yellow wallpaper with the smiling teddy bears with blue bows between their ears dotted across it.

He chuckled, shuffling closer a little more, "I won't press charges, if that's what you're worried about."

Pris smiled once again, this time wider, revealing her blunt greyish teeth beneath a stretch of deep pink. She shook her head, and he took this opportunity to once again get closer to her, the smoky mouth and cloudy eyes.

"Wait, Murdoc," she insisted, and then her soothing touch became the dig of four wide, flat knuckles into his shoulder. She was pushing him back, pushing her knuckles into his shoulder, blinking furiously. "You're fifteen."

She was pale, despite the heat, and breathing heavily through her nose. He glanced at her, lips thick and dry like her hands, and then closed his eyes. He didn't need to see her to know she wouldn't, couldn't, look. He felt her hands leave him, the palms had been chalky and warm; they left cool trails in their wake. He forced his eyes back open, and then said through clenched teeth, "I _know_."

Still she couldn't look, and it pissed him off. Her eyes were on the wall again, fluttery, blue.

"_What's_ the problem?" He asked suddenly, glaring at her face. Her eyes were foggy.

She answered, "You."

"Me?" he hissed. "_Now_ what have I fucking done?"

There was a pause, where he poked his tongue reflexively around his bloated lower lip. It would hurt to kiss her with that, he knew, but he didn't mind – didn't _care_. She'd taste of his brother's expensive cigarettes and girl and bubblegum pulp, her tongue would probably be all grainy like a cat's because it was dehydrated. He _wanted_.

"_You_," she said, "are my boyfriend's little brother."

She looked at his face finally, her mouth scrunching. She could smell that familiar warm scent, the smell of his _brother_, on him; shaving cream and nicotine and sweaty cotton t-shirts. His mouth was just the same as his, shaped the same, coloured the same, probably felt the same too.

"You're – you're my boyfriend's little brother," she said, quieter this time.

Saying it felt strange. It was sort of like having a tooth pulled and spitting out blood into a white enamel sink: the elation and revulsion of having living part of her cut out, to bleed and not feel a thing, to stick her tongue into a physical dead cavity of herself.

It escaped her, now, the reason that all of this came to be. All she knew now was that her mouth tasted of dental floss, dental mouth-rinse, bitter rubber dentist gloves. It didn't taste good.

"You're my boyfriend's little brother."

She had to think – _back_. But now it seemed the only memory left was his mouth that stank of vinegar, eating chips in sunset, warming their hands through the wrapping together, the brush of his fingers, the touch of their wrists, a look in his eyes like hunger and awe.

"I told you it was a mistake, Murdoc."

He got closer.

"It doesn't have to be."

"Well it is, because I said so!" she hissed at him, and now she was getting frustrated, because the stupid boy never, never listened and he always got her into trouble. He was going to now. She felt everything. All of it. She felt the anger of the kiss, the tender kiss, the hot, hot slide of those imaginary fingers pushing inside of her and curling, curling, twisting her, she felt every word he said, every breath, every dream of the sensation of shared nakedness, every glance to her chest, every flicker of love in his eye before the fuse of it melted and broke, every little thing that had led her to this; lying in her room with a little boy on her bed and a damp print in her gusset.

"Just let go," he said.

"No," she said. "I'm warning ya, get out now. Now. Get out now."

Suddenly all of it didn't matter, this was his once chance, one time, one moment, it had to be now, he had to have her now, take her now, fuck her, love her, whatever it was. He wasn't scared. He wasn't young.

"A kiss, just one more."

"No!" She insisted. He kept at it; he pulled her shirt and deliberately brushed his fingers against the tops of her breasts.

"You don't feel this?"

"No!"

"Can't you – you can't feel that, now, you can't feel any of this?"

"No, I don't feel anythin'!"

_Was_ this becoming rape?

"Pris, listen, listen, feel – can't you feel?"

She jumped back and whacked his jaw with her fist. It wasn't hard enough to snap or pop anything but it made it throb a little. "Leave me alone!" she yelped. Murdoc laughed at her.

"Stop lying to yourself." He got up onto his knees and leaned forward. As always she refused to draw back. He lifted his hands in front of her face. She didn't draw back. He placed them on her waist and a breath hitched up in her throat in mad surprise, the kind of sweet relief and shock you feel when a needle begins pushing into your arm.

"Don't, don't."

If it were rape, she would resist, he reminded himself. He wouldn't stop now. He slowly moved his hands upwards until he felt the small rounds of her tits. They felt unbelievably soft, so peaches and cream. Oh, and she didn't move. She didn't even fucking move. He smiled at her carefully and shuffled closer.

"You feel... _nice_," he purred. She was staring at him in horror but her body told him everything, the knees shifting apart, the splayed hands, the dirty twitching of her lower lip. "Pris-cill-a?"

She didn't make a sound.

"Pris, let me. Just let me."

She wasn't stopping him. She stared and stared and stared like a cat. She was swollen with a breath held in her. Her eyes were too blue to be real. Her cheeks were coloured like sweet warm wine. He moved his hands inwards and felt the full shape of her breasts. Her breath trembled in the desert land between them. Her nipples were taut beneath the fabric. He knew that she wanted.

"How does it feel?"

And look at how fucking weak she was here, no fight left in her, all mute and tame. She breathed into his face with a tinny sound, high-pitched. "Murdoc..."

"Ah, ya do speak," he chuckled softly. "Can I touch you more?"

The room seemed so clammy, so hot, the smell of sweat was like fresh sea salt. There was a little dark space, a rock pool where her shoulder met her neck, full of minerals, secrets. He dipped his head to it and kissed. The taste of Priscilla's skin. He felt every little disgusting germ on her move beneath his tongue and so he licked and licked and licked it up. He wanted every single thing. He moved higher and her breath whooshed out, the way the air sounds when you are somewhere very, very high up and are silent. A cliff top, some terrible peak on which they were, though their eyes were squeezed closed, looking over edge and standing on it and listening to that whooshing harsh wind that might just knock them over any minute. But his mind was moving too quick.

"I dreamed of this once," he said into her ear, so loud it made her flinch. Look how weak. He kissed a line down the length of that warm, silky neck, beating frantically with her life beneath his lips. He licked back up. "Pris, please. Feel something. Don't just sit. Please."

She just sat.

"Pris, say something, at least."

She did nothing. She was staring ahead with her plastic blue eyes again. He licked the sea shell of her ear and listened for the sound of far away thoughts and places, the sound of the ocean, but she shut him out. She gave him silence. "Pris!" he grunted.

He couldn't take it. He moved backwards and sucked softly on her left nipple through the fabric, leaving a wet patch of spit. Her eyes had closed and legs shifted further open. She was so warm underneath. He sucked the other, laved his tongue around, and then grabbed the hem of her shirt and yanked it up to her chin.

She was different to how he had imagined her, fuller, somewhat softer, and her nipples were the colour of soft pink coral and the flesh was brandy cream. _Oh God_. His dick was twitching desperately with every thought, straining against buttons and denim. He flicked her tongue over one nipple again and she made a strange scoffing noise. She tasted and felt fucking brilliant, all rough and pebbly and fleshy. He pushed down against her shoulder and she laid back, her head hitting the pillow once more. This was it. She was his.

His hand skittered down to her skirt and then moved, leisurely and slow, up her thigh and finally to her junction, the warmth of it. There was a silk, hot feeling on her panties. Damp. _Wet_.

"Murdoc," she whispered, and didn't she look an absolute picture of smuttiness and need with her tits heaving with her breath and her shirt shoved up around her neck. He lowered himself down onto his stomach, near gasping at the friction.

"Pris."

"I –"

"I can feel," he stroked his finger against the cottony fabric, applying pressure, squeezing his eyes shut and clenching his teeth against the urge to make some long, lusty noise. That little glossy print of moistness was growing and growing, more and more, wetter, wetter. Oh God. He felt the sickly slip of sweat between his fingers, his back, the muscles flexing and writhing beneath. "I can feel that ya want this."

"I – I do."

Muscles released, bunched, and her hips jutted upwards a little bit into his hand. Her fingers squeezed blood and water from the air, so it seemed. "_Yes_," was all he could utter before sort of growling, he couldn't describe the noise because it was ripped from the pit of his stomach. Ravenously he pulled down her underwear to her knees and felt the wet folds and bumps and smooth heat. She called out into the ceiling like _urh_. He flicked and rubbed and rolled. Her eyes reeled back into her skull, like _a-uh_, _Murdoc_. The grain of his tongue met the bold, reddish pink maddening supple moisture of her sex, like _fuck, oh, ah, yes, urh. _And now he wanted the silence back. He kissed her wildly, like a dentist's spit-sucker.

He heard the ocean.

* * *

At home Hannibal heard nothing but the sound of white noise, a disconnected radio. He had sat there for an hour afterwards doing nothing but watching the grey fuzz of a broken TV go whirring on and on in lines and waves. Murdoc returned home sometime later. He had not kept track of time.

Murdoc did not speak. He went to his room. Hannibal guessed, of course, to wank. But the usual ritual of changing his clothes and getting into bed was prolonged by something. Hannibal knew this because he did not scream for exactly thirteen minutes. The scream, of course, meant he had found the brown rabbit, slashed to a matted mass of gore, soaking into the mattress and sheets beneath his duvet. The glistening pink of his raw muscles stank of a butcher's gutter.

Hannibal had not washed his hands since killing it with Dad's steak knife in the garden. It was the neighbour's daughter's pet rabbit. A male, but it didn't matter, because Murdoc would never know the difference. Stealing it had been simple, asleep in its hutch, a ladder over the garden fence and back. It tried to run before it died, but he guessed Karen had done the same, and he guessed Mum had done the same.

The next thing he heard was Murdoc vomiting loudly and then screaming again. Dad was walking down the hallway. In the kitchen, Hannibal washed his hands of the stink of the rabbit blood. Murdoc had not washed his hands, yet, of the stink of Pris' sex.

* * *

**A/N: So we finally see how effed up everyone is. x) This has been really interesting to write and I hope it's an interesting read (or at least a slightly disturbing one). **

**Thanks to the lovely PandaLove01 and cherry-magpie-x for their amazing reviews – much love for you both!**

**Lemme know what you think guys! I hope everyone enjoys this!**


	18. Chapter Seventeen

**A/N: This chapter contains references to rape. If any of you, my lovely readers, feel uncomfortable with this please just skip the second section of this chapter.**

* * *

Murdoc's footsteps came down the stairs calm, a little parched of blood, like Hannibal's heart in his chest. Pad pad pad. He watched, intrigued, as the rabbit blood swirled into the plughole, and he didn't turn at the sound of Murdoc's breathing.

"Han –"

He had no more fucking time for any more of these fucking bullshit excuses. Everything was dead, dying, or wrapped up in a bin bag and leaking its guts. He didn't care anymore. He whipped around then, and stared at Murdoc's face, and he remembered the day he first saw it, eyes peacefully closed the way Mum's had been just after they'd started feeding her from a little clear bag of what he assumed was chicken soup, through a tube. He never saw her again.

And still here _he_ was.

"I did it for you," Hannibal said quickly. "I mean, think of all of the things I've given you."

Hannibal's face was completely expressionless, and Murdoc had never seen anything like it in his life. He was washed, dressed properly, his hands were clean, and he'd neatly folded the rose-patterned tea towel over the back of a chair. He looked like a man, Murdoc realised; a strong grown man with morals and purpose or something, the doting father, the wise-crack business man, the world-weary arsehole. Murdoc couldn't manage a word.

When he spoke he gradually got quicker and quicker and started to spit. "You can cook it. Fry it, boil it, roast it. You can skin it and make a coat, a hat, some gloves. You can stuff it and put it on the mantelpiece. You can sell it cheap or sell it pricey. You can drain it's blood and exfoliate. Or, why not finger it?"

A grassy taste rose up in Murdoc's gullet, like bad weed or undercooked potato. And he knew it was guilt. He thought of the writhing pink meats of Pris' sex, and the writhing pink meat of the slashed rabbit.

"Why not lick it out? Why not _fuck_ it? You're that screwed up, aren't ya, mate? You're _that_ fucking screwed up!" He was shouting now, but his face didn't move, and the anger didn't reach is eyes, didn't press a single line in his skin, didn't even shake his shoulders. It was contained, calculated, anger like a carbon monoxide pipe leak; it would feed him and feed him and feed him full and just slowly kill him, Murdoc knew. "I know what you've been fucking doing. C'mere."

Well, naturally, Murdoc didn't want to walk willingly into his hands. When he got there, there would be nothing for him but a strangler's clasp.

"I said, _come here_!"

It was yowled at him with such little emotion he knew he had to obey; steadily Murdoc was realising a person with no feelings rather than too many was a far greater danger. He walked to him, his head full of ants and ants' hills, butterflies, pins and needles. Hannibal did nothing but take his hand and scrub it under his nostrils, inhaling thickly. He clucked his tongue.

"Just like I thought," he whispered, staring into Murdoc's eyes. His looked like metal or concrete or brick in the dark; solid, cold, dead, inhuman but man-made. "I know that anywhere."

"Hans –"

"You know, Mum said you'd be a fuckin' curse," he spoke gently to him, as though reciting a sacred prayer, a secret. "She tried ta fuckin' kill you. And then you killed her. And then you killed Karen. An' now Pris is dead."

Murdoc gulped, feeling a burning swell of tears in his eyes. "Dead?"

"To me. Fuckin' dead to me, mate. You killed everybody."

"I haven't done anything!" he squealed when Hannibal grabbed the front of his t-shirt and began to chuckle pleasantly.

"You've done enough," he smiled. Strangely he articulated each word perfectly, well-trained, well-thought-out. "Have you ever wondered, Murdoc, what it might be like to fuck a dead body?"

Murdoc stood, shivering up against his brother's chest, "No."

"Well I popped my cork straight-a-fuckin'-way thinkin' about that," Hannibal laughed, "so now I guess we'll find out, won't we?"

"What?" Murdoc bellowed, "what are you gonna do? She didn't ask for anythin' – it was me, I started everythin', she lay there like a sack o'potatoes!"

Hannibal pressed his lips together, as if in contemplation of something, and then shrugged. "You know what? It doesn't matter. We're both leaving tonight and not coming back. So now. Rat-a-tat. I've got all of my money. And all of yours. And I've wiped the bank account. And now you're all as broke as I am. So now. Forget my face. And forget hers, you sick fuck," at this point Hannibal leaned in, and Murdoc felt the weirdly sexy, heated tingle of beer and brother on Hannibal's breath as it lingered over his lips. Then Hannibal licked his cheek, lavishly, in a single long stroke, leaving a glistening track of wetness on his skin. He spoke into his ear, "Or I'll come back, in the night, and cut your _fucking_ eyes out!"

He had a lit cigarette resting on the ashtray by the kitchen sink. Murdoc saw it coming, of course. Dad wasn't there. No-one was there, and he could barely speak or think for the pain of a cigarette burn in his cornea. That was the last thing he could remember from that night, and the last time he ever saw his brother.

* * *

Pris was sat in the dark when he came to the house. She invited him in hoping he didn't know anything, hoping to make it up to him, hoping God would forgive her. She went to the door naked, naked from praying to God, naked all but a pair of knickers and a cardigan wrapped around her.

"Hans!" she grinned at him.

"You're a brilliant liar," he said slowly.

So he knew. She squeezed her eyes shut, for a moment enjoying the broken pulsation of light stained on her retinas. When she opened her eyes he had shut the door and turned off the lights in the sitting room. It was dark. Her cigarette was still burning in her hand and the grey smoke hit the air like hot breath in a cold alleyway.

"Let me explain," she said, unafraid. He wouldn't dare hurt her, after all. She would put her clothes on, and they would talk, and she would repent somehow – although this was Murdoc's fault.

"Lie to me," he said slowly. His tone of voice sounded like a computer or a ghost or something; artificial. She flinched at it. Why wasn't he angry?

"I don't wanna lie anymore."

"No. Lie to me."

"I –"

"Lie and pretend you _like_ this."

He shoved her back against the wall. His fingers hooked into her underwear, scratching her skin softly, yanking it down her legs, binding her at the ankles. Before she could struggle he bit into her neck so hard he might have been trying to rip up a streaky piece of bacon. She felt his teeth dig against her pulse. She felt him draw pain out of her. She felt him lower her down – she knew it was her it was happening to, but her eyes saw nothing, even as she heard his belt buckle rattle, even as she stung inside, even as he licked at her face, spat in her silently screaming open mouth – she looked up at the light bulb and didn't feel a thing.

* * *

_31__st__ June 1981_

"So, what, you thought you'd fuck his little brother and just get away with it?"

Paula Cracker was hiding her small, gerbil-like, weed-reddened eyes behind sunglasses. She sat on one arm of the sofa in her sitting room, her feet resting on the cushion. She was still dressed in her cat-patterned pyjamas and, though she probably looked like a morning-after Nancy Spungen she couldn't help but regard the mess in front of her with the upmost disgust. This was Pris, filthy crying, wearing a men's denim jacket with grass stains on the elbows, holding a can of lime-cola on her lap, wrapped up in both hands as though she was a starving rodent. She was wearing a skirt, though her legs were thistly and she clearly needed a shave. Paula dared no look under her arms – her natural hair colour was a gingery dark brown like winter spices (she was a peroxide girl that was in deep need of a root touch up) and frankly her pits would have been nauseating. She was crying. She had a cut below her lip in the shape of a crescent moon and a massive, cherry-coloured mark on her neck that had swollen to a bruise.

"I didn't fuck him," she answered quietly. Her boy began zipping up a bag in the kitchen, and then hugged Paula's brother for a long amount of time.

"Well what happened then? Tony says you fucked him, but he's forgiven you and you're going to London now."

"I don't want to go to London," she said.

"Well why're you _going_ then?" Paula demanded, shaking her head at the girl's complete and utter hopeless dumbness. "Jesus, will ya fuckin' stop crying?"

"Oh, fuck off," she muttered.

Paula was outraged. She snapped, "Don't speak to me like that in my own fuckin' _house_! We've been good enough to let you stay here for two whole fuckin days, fuckin' bonkin' each other into bloody madness. I ain't surprised you're both so freaky." She stood up to leave, but not before throwing an empty packet of Sobraine Blacks at her inattentively, barking, "Why don't you just take a fuckin' hike and clean ya cunt? Huh? Well?"

Hannibal emerged from Tony Cracker's arms and slung the rucksack full of underwear, booze and t-shirts over his shoulder. He took her gently by the hand and guided her out of the house.

He'd paid Tony for his car. Pris sat in the passenger seat, as she was compelled to do for the rest of her life – she had been a passive vessel for two days.

She did not think about the future. Hannibal gave her a sweet kiss in the corner of her mouth, beautiful, caring, softly stroking her cheek like he loved her. She stared ahead at her reflection in the rear-view mirror. Murdoc was a baby. It was time to grow up. This seemed like a childish dream. It was time to grow up. She only had time left in the world to hold her to anything, to keep her alive.

She was going to grow out her hair.

* * *

**A/N: And so concludes Hopscotch! A million hugs, kisses and thank-yous to everyone who has reviewed, favourite and altered this story. Without the amazing support of all of my readers this would have never been finished, I'm sure of it. Your enjoyment and inspiration has been invaluable to me. I can't thank you all enough but I completely adore every single one of you (especially PandaLove01, Coy Fish and SweetCherryCandy and IAmTheRedOne for their recent reviews) . And an extra-special thank you to, of course, the exquisite cherry-magpie-x – everyone has Sara to thank for the continuation of this story from chapter one – she's been here from the beginning to the end and really is the best resource of encouragement and support I could ask for. Much love for you my darling!**

**I'm really sad to see this end, but I do hope everyone has enjoyed the experience. As we come to an end I'd like to recommend a few things to you my gorgeous readers. Nothing like a bit of shameless self advertisement! If you still have an insatiable appetite for Hopscotch, please see:**

*** Shoebox – a Murdoc/Hannibal fic written by me, further expanding on Karen the Rabbit.**

*** Pinch – a fanfic of a fanfic by cherry-magpie-x, a beautifully written ghost scene to this story. It's just so perfect I feel I might've written it myself, please go and give her love!**

*** Debridement/NRT/Burning Thicket – three other Gorillaz fics by yours truly. **

**I'm now beginning a new chaptered fic, this time for the Wuthering Heights fandom – if you're a fellow literature geek please check it out!**

**So here I sign out. Please let me know what you think, feel free to send Pris goodbyes. I think she might need a little cheering up, so please do! I know she'll miss being written about. If you'd like me to write any fics I do take requests, just sayin' ;)**

**Love,**

**Soph :) **


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